


So Take Me Back To Constantinople

by Pen37



Series: To Say Nothing Of The Dragon [4]
Category: Brave (2012), How to Train Your Dragon (Movies)
Genre: Before shotguns were invented, F/M, Feels, Hiccup is a damsel in distress, Humor, Idiots in Love, Mericcup, Merida is a dragon whisperer, Merida realizes that this is her circus and these are her Monkeys, Pathos, Romantic Comedy, Sassy Hiccup, Shotgun Wedding, Toothless is so done with things, engineer hiccup, friends to friends who also happen to be in love with one another, hiccup is crafty, hiccup is smart, political Elinor, political Stoick, political astrid
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-21
Updated: 2019-02-07
Packaged: 2019-10-14 03:24:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 22,891
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17500643
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pen37/pseuds/Pen37
Summary: When Hiccup finds a drawing of a Night Fury among a stack of trade goods, it sends him scrambling to the only person crazy enough to drop everything and help him investigate — even if it means chasing the lead halfway around the world.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> So this story arc is veering into Mericcup territory. I didn’t start the series with that in mind. (I envisioned Merida growing into the idea of love with Young MacGuffin, and Hiccup still pining over Astrid like a tree.) 
> 
> But then I saw the previews for How to Train Your Dragon 3, and I wasn’t too impressed with the Light Fury. (She’s growing on me, but If I were going to design the female of the species, that wasn’t what I would do.) 
> 
> As I thought about it, this story popped into my head. The Mericcup parts are just low hanging fruit on the screwball comedy tree. 
> 
> Anyway, be warned. There will be some romance, but not a lot of mushy stuff.

“That looks like a good spot. Why don’t you land there, Bud?” Hiccup pointed to a clearing at the top of a heavily-wooded, rocky hill. 

With a grunt of acknowledgment, Toothless landed in the center of the clearing. Hiccup had been tempted just to fly to the castle. But Merida’s warning hovered in the back of his mind. 

“If you ever need to visit, best not to come swooping in on that great black beastie like a baobhan sith. Like as not, some gormless watchman would take a shot at you with an arrow. It would be better to land and take the high road like a common traveler.” 

It was good advice (even if he didn’t know what a baobhan sith was.) Advice he planned to take. Once he figured out where he was. 

Hiccup dismounted, scanning the forest for potential danger. The clearing was ringed with upright, rough-hewn stones. One of the largest was cracked in two across the middle, it’s top half having fallen inward. 

He ran his hand along the cool, stony surface. “I hope we didn’t just land in the middle of a vé or something, Bud.” He said. 

“We won’t hold it against you, dark rider.” A melodious voice - like the sound of Elder Gothi’s bone wind chimes twisting in a blizzard - hammered through his ear canal and into his brain. 

Hiccup turned to see a vision of loveliness standing between two of the stones at the opposite edge of the clearing. Her piercing eyes reminded him of the shadow of a sinking longship dashed on the rocks during a sunlit day. Her blonde hair, like the pale whiteness of a shark. 

She smiled at him, and he remembered what it was to be fifteen and hopelessly pining for Astrid. He felt off balance — just like whenever he was in Merida’s presence, receiving her exasperated half-explanations. 

The Lady smiled. “Come to me, dark rider.”

Without quite realizing what he was doing, Hiccup stepped toward her. 

— 

Toothless watched as his person stared, slack-jawed at the . . . Thing on the other side of the clearing. He didn’t know what it was, but it wasn’t human. It smelled wrong, like mad honey. 

As his person stepped toward the thing, Toothless growled querulously. He bit the back of his person’s leather harness, and lifted him so that his legs no longer reached the ground. 

“Let go, Bud!” His person slurred drunkenly. 

Toothless whined. He needed to take off and get his person away from the thing, but the boy was in no condition to operate the tail fin.

Before he could make up his mind whether to run, or to drop his person and hold him down with a paw so that he could stand his ground, an arrow flashed through the air and landed in the dirt at the thing’s feet. 

“‘At’s far enough, Mab O’ Sidhe.” The red haired girl who smelled like pine and waterfalls stepped into the clearing, her bow nocked with a second arrow. An old woman followed. A crow rested on her shoulder and several carving knives floated about her head, pointed menacingly at the thing across the clearing. 

Four of the annoying little eye-licking dragonkin flew in agitated circles about the girl, their cries sounded like someone was trying to strangle a goat. 

The Night Fury shook his head. These? These were his allies?

—

The queen of the fair folk glared at Merida. 

“Would you steal this one from me as well, Princess?” She hissed at Merida in sibilant tones. 

“The only one stealing is you.” Merida snapped.

“Does he belong to you, then?” Mab asked silkily. 

Merida’s face reddened. “He belongs to himself,” she said tartly. “I’ll be damned if I let you take his will while you steal his years.”

“You can’t defeat me! Not with your cold iron bolts and your pathetic woodcarver’s spells.” The Fey said in a voice like glacier water.

“She may be right, dear.” The crow on the woodcarver’s shoulder murmured. 

“Hush!” The woodcarver shushed the crow. 

“I’ll take him, and the Bear Princess as well.” The fairy queen snarled. 

Merida glanced at Toothless, then thought of a bluff that might work. “I don’t have to defeat you,” she smirked. “You’ve crossed the King of all Dragons: the unholy offspring of lightning and death.”

With a wicked grin, she moved to Toothless’s side. As soon as she did, the dragon dropped Hiccup like a rag doll. The dragon rider made to get up, but his dragon pushed him down with a front paw. 

With his jaws now free, Toothless snarled, crackling with blue lightning, every inch the monster of legend.

Merida pulled her arrow back to her cheek, ignoring the way her hair stood on end like the head of a thistle. “I think he’s tryin’ to tell ye: come and get us, if ye think ye’re hard enough. Else leave these lands. And harass me people nae more!”

Mab snarled at them, her black eyes narrowed. She stepped back. In the space between two heartbeats, she slipped into the shadow of the standing stones, and vanished. 

Merida lowered her bow, shaking the tension from her shoulders. Her agitated terrible terriers flocked to her, chattering and seeking reassurance. Wee Dingbat nestled in her static-filled hair, wrapping his tail around her neck. The sisters sheltered in her skirts. 

“Och, away wi’ ye! Wee devils.” She chided the dragons. 

The old woodcarver knelt next to Hiccup. “He’ll be dazed for a bit. Best get him to my cottage.”

“Have ye a restorative draught we could give him?” Merida asked. 

The woodcarver huffed in annoyance. “For the last time, Princess. I only work in bears! If you want him turned into a bear, I can help you. Otherwise, I have tea.”

“Tea would be lovely.” Merida sighed. She hoisted Hiccup, as best she could with Toothless’s help, across the dragon’s back. Then the group followed the woodcarver to her hut. 

They removed Hiccup’s armor and put him abed in his tunic and trews. Then Merida sat in a wooden chair (with bear paw feet) next to the bed (carved with scenes of bears fishing for trout in a stream). The woodcarver put a little earthenware mug (with a bear stamped into it, what else?) steaming with chamomile and a honey pot with a little wooden spoon (also carved with a bear’s head) on the table. 

Toothless - who had somehow squeezed into the room, knocking over everything not nailed down in the process- sniffed Merida’s drink. He made a horking sound that reminded Merida of her brothers’ reaction to Haggis. 

“No one asked you to drink it.” The crow snapped at Toothless. 

Merida snorted. This was the oddest visit to the woodcarver’s she’d had yet. 

The great black dragon settled alongside the bed. The sisters and Dingbat settled on a tree outside and took to humming - their tune mimicking Wee Dingwall’s efforts on the Lyre. 

Merida winced at the sound. She only had herself to blame. After all, she had been the one who introduced the wee dragons to Wee Dingwall and suggested that the young lord teach them aught he knew of music. 

At the time, she’d hoped to turn Wee Dingwall’s attention away from composing a ballad in praise of her exploits (honestly! He was trying to rhyme “ferocious” with “my sister, Louis.” His sister’s name was Katherine, for Brighid‘s sake!). If in the process she kept the wee dragons from mimicking the battle piper when he practiced, so much the better. 

In hindsight, it wasn’t her best plan. She really needed to expand their musical repertoire in more dulcet ways.

Hiccup stirred on the bed, letting out a pitiful groan. Merida started, and realized that she’d drained most of the cup and the sunlight in the window had crept across the floor while she was woolgathering. 

Toothless rested his head and one paw on the mattress, reminding Merida of the clever wee collies the farmers kept to guard their flocks. 

Hiccup blinked once, twice, then abruptly sat up, spluttering. 

Merida poured water from a (bear themed) pitcher into another earthenware mug. 

“Easy,” Merida cautioned as she held the mug for him to take. 

Hiccup drank deeply, the liquid dribbling out the sides of the mug and down his chin. He sat it down, wiped his face with the back of his sleeve and fixed his clear green eyes on her. 

“What happened?” He asked. 

Merida blinked, looking down under the intensity of his arrow-sharp focus. “You almost fell prey to the queen of the fairies.” She said.

“The . . . Queen Of The fairies?” Hiccup made a face as if he wasn’t quite certain he believed her stories. It was his usual expression in her presence. 

“Aye,” Merida put her own mug down. “She’s been stalking these lands for weeks, snatchin’ up whomever she chooses. Sometimes they come back the next morn, havin’ aged sixty years. Some don’t come back at all - though the stories say they might return in a hundred years, still as young as the day they left.”

Hiccup gulped. “Well, thanks for saving me.”

Toothless rumbled in discontent. 

“And you, Bud.” Hiccup patted the dragon’s nose. 

“What brings you this far south?” Merida asked. “I assume you weren’t paying a social visit.”

Hiccup hoisted himself out of bed awkwardly. His prosthetic twisted in the blankets. He stood precariously balanced on one leg while shaking the other in an attempt to free it. 

Merida hid a smile. He looked so endearing, like a lost wee lamb. It reminded her of the way his dragon stumbled about the room, knocking things over. 

Finally, he kicked the blanket free, turned to the dragon and pulled a scroll from a saddlebag. 

“Take a look at this.” He tossed it to her. She unrolled it to find what looked like an advertisement of some kind in an unfamiliar, script. What drew her eye was a stylized drawing of Hiccup’s great beastie. 

“It’s Toothless, Aye?”

“No.” Hiccup shook his head, looking deadly serious. “It’s not.”

Just then, Toothless’s stomach growled. 

Merida smiled at the beastie. “What say we discuss this down at the river? There’s plenty o’ nice trout for Toothless to catch, and I’m sure the woodcarver would like her house back.”

“Yes, she would!” The woodcarver called out from the next room. 

Hiccup smiled sheepishly. “Alright.” 

Toothless eeled out of the hut, knocking everything over on his way. Hiccup stumbled behind, catching things, setting them upright, stammering and apologizing profusely to the woodcarver. 

Once dragon and rider were out of the hut, Merida pressed some coins into the woodcarver’s hand. “To cover anything the beastie damaged. Thank you for your help, earlier.”

The woodcarver nodded. “I’ll send Morrigan if I sense aught of the fair folk in these woods.”

“Thank ye.” Merida looked up at the crow, perched on a cookoo clock covered in figurines of a bear eating a woodcutter. “And thank ye, Morrigan.” 

“Off wi’ ye now.” The woodcarver said. “And off wi’ your noisy terriers, too.” 

Merida laughed, waving her tiny dragons to her as she started down the path after Hiccup and Toothless. 

She led them to the riverbank where she used to ride Angus and practice archery. While Toothless and the sisters dove for fish, Wee Dingbat rolled in the mud on the bank and warbled tunelessly.

“Senseless little bampot,” Merida said affectionately. The dragon of the same name warbled at her. “Not you, Bampot. I meant yur brother.”

“Is that the one you named after Young Dingwall?” Hiccup asked. 

“I call him Dingbat now.” Merida nodded. “Mum suggested the name change. She thought the Dingwall clan might take offense o’ his original name.”

Dingbat looked up, and licked an eye. 

“Can’t imagine why.” Hiccup deadpanned.

Merida settled on a rock to wait for Hiccup’s explanation of the drawing. Hiccup unrolled the scroll and pointed to the lettering. “I got this off of a trader who said it came from from Miklagård.”

“The big city. At’s a verra literal name.”

“We Vikings call it like we see it,” Hiccup shrugged. “I’m told that you could probably fit all of Berk into one of the Emperor’s feasting halls there.”

Merida squinted at the letters, turning the poster this way and that. The loopy script peppered with accent marks looked familiar. 

She remembered something like that in the castle library. There had been a set of books about the big war and the long journey and the one-eyed giant. 

“I think this might be . . . Greek?” She’d learned a smattering of Greek and Latin from Elinor as part of her diplomacy lessons before they’d given it up as a hopeless case. “I had a few lessons, but I made a mince o’ it. Can ye’ describe Miklagård?”

Hiccup raised a querulous eyebrow. “It’s to the south of the empire of the Rus. They say that the city is an entire league in any direction and surrounded by walls, even on the water.“

“Is there a chain stretched across the waterway?” Merida asked.

“That’s what the stories say,” Hiccup nodded. “I take it you’ve heard of Miklagård by a different name.”

“Hiccup, that’s Constantinople.” Merida said in exasperation. “It’s the largest city in the world.”

“Hence the name Miklagård.” Hiccup nodded. “I don’t know what this scroll is about. But whoever made it has seen a Night Fury. I thought Toothless was the only one.”

“Maybe this is Toothless?” Merida looked up at the dragon, who sat up with a mouth full of trout, grinning sloppily at them around his catch. “You don’t know where he was before he met you.”

“I’d like to find out,” Hiccup said. “I always assumed that Toothless was the last of his kind. If there is another, I owe it to him to find out.”

“So why come to me?” Merida asked. 

“Several reasons,” Hiccup said. “First, you’re the only person I know who has heard of Constantinople.” 

“Before today, you hadn’t heard of Constantinople.” Merida laughed.

“And all the other Vikings are more backward than I am. Most of them haven’t even been outside The Barbaric Archepelegio.”

He took a deep breath, and seemed to be marshaling his thoughts. “Second reason: If the dragon in this drawing isn’t Toothless, and if it’s being held in a menagerie or fighting in a circus, then the only hope I have to rescue it is to get someone to bond with it so that the two of them can work together to get it free.” 

He ticked the reasons off on his fingers. “Astrid would be the only other person I trust for a mission like this, but she’s already bonded with Stormfly. Plus she has a responsibility to the village. She can’t take on the commitment of a second dragon, much less travel halfway around the world on a potential rescue mission. And none of the younger, unbonded students in the dragon school have the experience.”

“Don’t you have a responsibility to your village?” Merida asked. “I thought your academy was coming along.”

“It’s at a point where I can trust Fishlegs and Gobber to take over. Especially if this is another Night Fury.” Hiccup said. He ran his hands through his hair. “Honestly? I haven’t had an easy time of it fitting in back on Berk.” 

He kicked the ground, then flopped down with a frustrated groan. 

Merida sat next to him, resettling her bow across her shoulder and touching his arm in encouragement. 

“People are uncomfortable with me.” He said quietly. He snatched up a stalk of heather and began methodically pulling the tiny purple flowers from the stem. “They saw the skeleton of the Red Death. And now they see me all scarred up and riding Toothless and . . . I think that’s hard to reconcile this,” he gestured to himself, “with Hiccup the Useless.”

“I don’t understand,” Merida looked confused. “When I last visited Berk, you were acting ambassador to the other Norse villages.”

“I did that because Dad asked me to for the good of Berk. I need to do something to pull my weight, if I’m not going to be Chief. And also? It gives me the chance to wander a little bit.”

“Dad and Astrid agreed that the dragon training school was a good idea. And they’ve been implementing some of my more workable inventions, like the fire suppression systems. I just. . . needed this.” He confessed. “A break. A chance to maybe come to terms with everything.”

Merida knew that he’d already had years alone, just him and Toothless. But he’d been in survival mode. When your head is filled with finding your next meal or repairing your saddle, there isn’t really room in it for thinking about the past. 

Being back around people would be difficult after years of being alone and half-feral with naught but his dragons for company. Adding in all his prior years of family baggage - even after he and his dad had made up- would only compound that. 

She thought of Astrid and Snotlout and their marriage. “I’m sure it’s also not easy to find that the village moved on without you.” Merida said. “I know that every time I come back to DunBroch, it’s a shock to see the boys a little more grown up than when I left.”

Hiccup nodded. 

“Do you really think that going away again will fix that? People just keep changing.” 

Hiccup pinned her with his startling green eyes. “I just thought it would give me time to get my head on straight. But I don’t want to go alone. I don’t want to be alone anymore.” 

“So you thought of me.” Merida said slowly. She wasn’t quite sure what to do with that. “You realize that if there is another Night Fury, and I do partner with it, that we’ll be trainin’ it together? And what if it’s a babby? Then we’d be rasin’ it together.” And if it were a female, then she and Hiccup would likely become in-laws of a sort. 

“I know it’s a lot to ask, but yes. I thought of you: the person who flew on the back of a headless horse all the way to Berk to ask a blacksmith she barely knew to help repair a coach made of bone.” Hiccup said. “You’ve been known to drop everything to help anyone, even an unseelie who asks, no matter how crazy they sound. You have more nerve than anyone I know. And . . .” He trailed off. 

“And I thought we were starting to become friends.” He looked suddenly vulnerable. 

Merida’s heart broke a little for Hiccup then. Admittedly, she barely knew him. What was his life like, that he’d count some hoyden of a Scottish princess and a fire breathing murder lizard among his closest friends?

She knew she couldn’t say no. 

“Well, when you put it that way.” Merida brushed off her hands and stood. “Come back to the castle.”

“Back to the castle?” Hiccup blinked in confusion. 

“Aye,” Merida nodded. “I’ve learned from experience that Mum always gives me good advice afore I take on a new quest. ‘Sides. Neither of us know Greek. Best we learn before we go haring off to Constantinople.” 

Hiccup sighed. “How long is this going to take?”

“I learned your tongue in three fortnights,” Merida informed him. “A clever man like yourself can probably manage.” 

“I thought you’d be all for haring off wherever we need to go.” Hiccup muttered. 

“You’re looking for the girl who turned her mum into a bear.” Merida said. “I’ve learned a thing or two about planning since then.” 

“Clearly.” Hiccup crossed his arms, but followed the princess anyway.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The obligatory shotgun wedding (claymore wedding?) chapter. Written entirely for the sake of comedy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As I wrote this story, I read a lot of Mericcup fiction. For research purposes. (Whistles innocently). 
> 
> Two things I got tired of quickly were:
> 
> 1\. The plot hinging on Elinor forgetting every scrap of character development that she gained in Brave and insisting on yet another forced marriage. 
> 
> 2\. Merida forgetting every scrap of character development she gained in Brave and swearing never to marry anyone ever. 
> 
> Part of the point of Brave was that these two characters who were so very much alike learned compromise. 
> 
> Elinor agreed to give Merida the time she needed to grow up and get used to the idea of being married. And Merida and the suitors agreed to come to a decision together about who she should marry once they’d all gotten to know one another. 
> 
> When I decided to write this chapter, I took it as a challenge to myself to write this tired fanfic trope a little differently and see if I would be pleased with the results. 
> 
> I am satisfied with what I wrote, and I hope you are as well.

“Marriage!” Merida shrieked at her mother, waving her arms about her head. “I thought we buried this discussion years ago!”

Hiccup half-stood. “I — I think my father might appreciate a say in this.” He stammered, running his hands through his hair. “I mean, It’s not Friday, and I haven’t even gotten her a courting cat.”

Both Merida and her mother broke their staring contest to give him twin looks of confusion. Hiccup blushed and looked away.

At his spot where he slept by the fire, Toothless shifted his head and opened one large green eye. He huffed in annoyance, closed his eye and rolled over.

“Why would I need a cat?” Merida wrinkled her brow. “I already have four wee dragons.”

“It’s a tradition,” Hiccup mumbled. “Anyway, I don’t think dad would be too happy that I was married in a Christian ceremony. Thor would definitely not approve.”

“I’m not excited at the idea, either.” Merida commiserated. “I prefer the Goddess Brighid.”

“Saint Bridget,” Elinor said.

“We’ve only called her that since I was baptized,” Merida retorted. “And that’s just the priest making sure Da’ covers his —“

“Do not finish that sentence, dear.” Elinor warned Merida, a hard look in her eye.

Merida closed her mouth with a snap. She regularly matched wits and arrows against the worst of the otherworld, and she didn’t believe that the Christian God would strike her down with lightning.

Mum, on the other hand, had once been turned into a bear and was standing close enough that she could give Merida’s ear a good twist if she wanted to.

“Both of you calm down! I’m only suggesting a handfasting betrothal!” Elinor shot Merida a quelling look. “A trial marriage. Lasting a year and a day. Then, if the two of you don’t wish to make the arrangement permanent, you are free to go your separate ways and Hiccup hasn’t violated any of his people’s customs.”

Merida sat down in her seat at the table. She looked sideways at Hiccup, who appeared just as poleaxed as she felt.

“Why would it be necessary for us to do this before we undertake this quest?” Hiccup asked. “You made her an ambassador before. Shouldn’t that be sufficient?”

“Sufficient to explain why an unmarried princess travels with an entourage across The Barbaric Archipelago and as far south as Corona. All places that we have treaties with.” Elinor nodded. “All places she was invited to, and has a reason for visiting.”

“But Merida, you plan to travel halfway around the world with naught but this young man and your dragons,” Elinor said gently. “To a country we’ve only ever heard of and certainly have no dealings with. With no obvious purpose. Some would wonder why you are there. Some might call you a spy. Some would look at you as a valuable target against us.”

“Let them try,” Merida muttered darkly.

“There are also those among the clans who would question our fitness to rule for letting you do this. However, if you happen to be on a voyage with your new husband . . .” Elinor trailed off, spreading her hands as if the conclusion should be obvious.

“We wouldnae stand out overmuch.” Merida put her face in her hand.

“You would arouse a little curiosity as a foreign princess,” Elinor said. “But I’m certain the court of Constantinople would barely notice you. Especially if you keep those dragons of yours out of sight.

“We’re at the edge of the world, as far as they’re concerned. You could play up the part of ignorant barbarians. It won’t be hard. Especially if you forget every manner I’ve ever taught ye’.”

“Is this about how I always put me bow on the table?” Merida sighed.

Hiccup looked down, no doubt to to hide a grin.

“You would have the freedom to move about the city wherever you wish,” Elinor continued as if Merida hadn’t spoken.

“That . . . could work.” Hiccup rubbed his chin.

“What?” Merida said flatly, eyebrows knitting.

“It would give us more freedom to move than my original plan. I was going to sign on with the Emperor’s guard.”

Merida bit her lip. Hiccup wasn’t really fooling anyone with the extra padding in the arms and shoulders of his gambeson. She’d bet that under his flight leathers, his arms were a bit on the noodley side.

“How would you do that?” Elinor asked diplomatically.

“The Emperor’s personal guard are all Northmen.” Hiccup said. “Not ideal, given my leg. But most Northmen who go a-viking return without at least a finger or two. I would have managed.”

“And where would I have been while you were learning to march in formation with a pike?” Merida propped her head in her hand.

“I suppose you would have had to . . . pose as my wife?” He gulped.

“And to think, you once told me that you weren’t looking for a hauswif.” Merida said dryly.

“This is the preferred option, then.” Elinor clapped her hands, as if the matter was settled.

“But I’m still not ready for marriage.” Merida whined.

“I ken you haven’t watched your father and meself close enough,” Elinor said tartly. “What, exactly do you think marriage is?”

Merida opened her mouth, then realized that she’d never given it much thought beyond the idea that she’d have to give up archery and horseback riding to spend her days at needlepoint tapestries and that damnable harp. She realized now with startling clarity how ridiculous that notion was.

Her face flushed hot in embarrassment.

“I suspected as much.” Elinor said with a sigh. “Merida, marriage is just supposed to be a partnership: two people who agree to share one another’s burdens to make them lighter. In your father and my case, that burden is ruling our kingdom.

“Why do you think that I handle diplomacy?”

“Because Da’ would make mince o’ it?” Merida guessed.

“Exactly.” Elinor nodded. “You’re not giving up anything. You’re not being trapped. The two of you are already entering a partnership. If this strange dragon o’ Master Haddock’s proves real, and you do form a bond with it, you may be working together for the rest o’ your lives. Does it really matter if you do it under the same roof or nae?”

Merida and Hiccup exchanged dubious glances. But everything Elinor said made sense. Merida raised her brows in silent question to Hiccup. He shrugged and nodded.

“I suppose not.” Merida said grudgingly. “And It’s nae like I’m bein’ forced tae marry some stranger I’ve never even met like last time. ‘Sides, We can always part ways if we choose.”

“O’ course you can.” Elinor said. Although Merida didn’t miss the way the corner of the Queen’s mouth turned up for a fraction of a second. Merida mentally waved it away. Let her mum think what she wanted. In the end, she and Hiccup would be deciding their own fates.

“You get to tell Da’ then.” Merida said. She looked around the dining room. “Speaking o’ which, where is he?”

“Getting the priest.” Elinor’s smile burst forth like the sun emerging from the clouds. “He was in a right tizzy at the thought of a dragon-ridin’ son-in-law. None of the other clan lairds can boast o’ that.”

“Now?” Merida yelped. “You want to do this now?”

A knock on the door interrupted their conversation. Hiccup, Merida and Elinor looked up as Maudie put her head into the room.

“King Fergus sends word that he’s brought the priest,” Merida’s auld nurse said. “He said that if ye managed to talk the princess and the daft lad round to your way of thinking, that you’d best meet them at the door of the chapel before they change their minds.”

“Thank ye, Maudie.” Elinor rolled her eyes. “We’ll be right along.”

“I thought we might have a bit more time to get used to the idea.” Merida said weakly.

“The two of you led me to believe that you wanted to leave as soon as possible,” Elinor lifted an eyebrow. “How long do you think you need?”

“I don’t know!” Merida whined.

“Will waiting make a difference?”

“No,” Hiccup said.

“Then best get it over with.” Elinor chivved them out the door and down the hall. “A’fore ye lose your nerve.”

—

“What is a Christian ceremony like?” Hiccup whispered to Merida as they followed Elinor down the hall.

“Handfasting,” Merida whispered back. “We clasp hands, and the priest will bind them. Probably with the DunBroch tartan. And we’re expected to verbally say that we consent to be married for a year and a day.”

“That’s it?” Hiccup whispered back in surprise.

“Most o’ the time. But since the village priest is involved, and since he’s convinced that I’m goin’ straight to Hell for me wicked ways, he’ll probably take the time to deliver a sermon, for me’ own good.” Merida made a face.

“Warriors don’t go to Helheim,” Hiccup said in a scandalized tone. “They go to Valhalla, where they battle each day and feast each night.”

“Sounds nice,” Merida said wistfully. “I used to hope that when I died, me sprit would become a kestrel.”

“You wanted to be a bird?” Hiccup sounded uncertain.

“Why not? You want to fight all day and feast all night.”

“I never said I wanted to,” Hiccup said defensively. “Just . . . That’s what you do in Valhalla.”

“The Kestrel is the most patient hunter o’ all birds of prey,” Merida said. “They’re the smallest o’ the falcons, but they’ll sit still for hours, waiting to strike. And when they do, they can take down prey three times their size.

“When I was a girl, all I wanted was me freedom. To hunt, to ride. Maybe to climb the Crone’s Tooth and drink from the Fire Falls. No lessons in etiquette and needlepoint. No damnable harp. Just the chance to chase the wind.”

“I can see why you’d like to be a hawk,” Hiccup said softly. “Hel, if I had to choose between Valhalla and coming back as a dragon, I think I’d choose a dragon.”

Merida gave him a lopsided smile. “Maybe I would too, now that I know dragons exist. But I’d want to be a great hunter, not something like me wee ones, licking their eyeballs.”

Hiccup laughed. “You think that’s what happened to Dingbat? He was a Dingwall in a past life?”

Merida snorted with mirth. “Oh gods! That would explain so much!” She gasped out.

Elinor looked back at them with a knowing smile, causing Merida to stand a bit straighter and take a side step away from Hiccup.

He rolled his eyes. “Yeah, you sure showed her.” He muttered. Merida responded by stepping on his foot.

His prosthetic foot.

“Ow.” He said sarcastically.

Hiccup relaxed a bit as they walked. Dad would probably hit the roof when he heard about this. But Merida wasn’t unpleasant to be around.

If he had to be married—even just for a year and a day—to someone who wasn’t Astrid, then at least it was with someone he enjoyed talking with. Someone he could build a friendship with.

“Customarily, Vikings exchange swords during a wedding ceremony,” he told Merida.

“Oh I like that!” Merida smirked at him. “You’ve a bonnie sword. I wouldn’t mind carrying it.”

“Ha ha.” Hiccup said in a flat tone. “You’re not getting my sword.”

“Pity,” Merida said wickedly.

Hiccup blinked. Did she just imply . . . ?

They came to a tiny room at the end of the Hall. In front of which stood King Fergus, the three princes and a man in a longer dress and holding an open book in his hand. Hiccup assumed he was the priest.

Through the open door, Hiccup could see an altar. It looked like the room might have been a storeroom at some point.

As they drew near, Fergus approached them.

Merida’s dad looked Hiccup up and down. Hiccup wondered if the brawny King would next pry his jaws open and check his teeth.

“This is the one, then?” Fergus sniffed, as if no man would be good enough for Merida. Which - fair enough. If Hiccup ever had a daughter, no man would ever be good enough for her, either.

“For now.” Merida lifted her chin. Behind Fergus, the priest gasped, and Elinor slapped her hand across her eyes. The three redheaded boys grinned maliciously.

“He’s not as braw as Young Macintosh,” Fergus said.

“He’s also not in love wi’ his own face.” Merida countered.

“I bet Wee Dingwall would put up more of a fight.”

“If you point the gormless bampot in the right direction.”

“You’d be breaking Young Macguffan’s heart.”

Merida’s face fell. “I suspect I already broke it, Da.” She said sorrowfully. “I could have seen meself as his wife, and he would have made a fine consort to a Queen. I’m sure that eventually I would have even learned to understand what he said.

“But that’s a path me life didn’t take. We’re ill suited now. He wants a partner to help him for the good of his clan. And I can’t be that. Not when fate chose a different path for me.”

Fergus nodded. “But you can help build a dragon school?”

Merida looked sideways at Hiccup and shrugged. “We’ll see.”

Fergus pinned Hiccup with a stern gaze. Hiccup felt himself stand up straighter.

“And you’re willing to follow Merida to the ends of the earth, and protect her rear flank?”

“Ends Of The earth, yep! Already planning the trip!” Hiccup said.

“Lad, I’m taking a liking to you! So consider this a warning. If you ever hurt Merida . . .” Fergus clapped a heavy hand on Hiccup’s right pauldron. He pulled Hiccup so that the two were nose-to-nose. His face deadly serious. Hiccup swallowed hard. “She’ll kill you!”

“Da!” Merida rolled her eyes. Fergus grinned at them.

“Let’s be getting on with it, then.” Elinor said.

The wedding party took it’s place at the door of the chapel. Merida and Hiccup clasped clammy hands and the priest wove them together with a bit of cloth that was the same pattern as the King’s dress.

It all seemed surreal to Hiccup. Was he really doing this? He felt like he was outside his own body, watching as his mouth spoke the words of consent.

He hadn’t felt this detached since he’d woken up, washed up on the beach with Toothless after defeating the Red Death.

It had been shock back then that got him through. If he’d had all his faculties, he might not have been able to deal with the pain of his cauterized missing leg long enough to find a cave for him and Toothless to take shelter in.

Was this shock now?

He looked into Merida’s face. She looked just as numb as he. That was a small comfort. At least someone knew how he felt.

As the priest droned on, (saying something about lakes of fire and brimstone. When had he been to dragon lsland?) he suddenly trailed off mid-rant.

“Oh Saints preserve us!” The priest said in a heavy Irish brogue. Hiccup realized that the priest was looking past them, down the hall. With a sinking feeling, he thought he knew why.

Turning, he saw Toothless stumbling after them, a table hanging askew from his head and some bear-themed wall hanging wrapped over his wings like a blanket. The dragon stopped, and gave them all a gummy grin. His forked tongue lolled out of the side of it’s mouth.

“Behold! The unholy offspring of lightning and death.” Hiccup said dryly.

“Is that one of me tapestries?” Elinor shrieked.

Hiccup started down the hall, only to realize that he was still tied to Merida.

“Whoops! Sorry!”

Merida huffed in exasperation. “Mum’ll Have our hides if Toothless damages her work.”

She wriggled her outer hand free of the ties. He did the same with his. With their inner hands still clasped and tied, they moved together to save the tapestry.

Once Toothless was free, he licked a stripe across Hiccup’s head. “Oh eugh!” Hiccup whined. “Bud! You know that stuff doesn’t wash out!”

Merida giggled.

Hiccup grinned at her. “Oh you think that’s funny, do you?” He yanked her into a sloppy headlock, running his dragon-slobber covered hand through her hair and giving her a noogie. “Come here, wife! Your darling hubby wants to give you a hug.”

“Let go of me, ye numpity!” Merida laughed. Her accent thickened noticibly as she flailed her free arm against his shoulder inneffectually. “I’m gunna gie ye sich a kickin’ inna heid, ya wee scunner!”

“What’s that, dear?” Hiccup chortled at her. “I don’t understand gargling.”

“Do you mind!” The priest screamed at them. Both Hiccup and Merida froze. They looked up to see the priest, red faced and shaking with rage. Behind him, Fergus and the boys smirked mischievously, while Elinor was doubled over, shaking with laughter.

“Gowan! Gie’ him sich a kickin’!” One of the triplets cheered, punching the air. Elinor stopped him from further angering the priest by covering his mouth with her hand.

They hastily stood. Merida smoothed away imaginary dirt and wrinkles from her dress with her dragon-slobber coated free hand, staining the dress beyond repair. She twisted her bird’s nest of hair into a sloppy column at her back. Hiccup shook the worst of the mess from his head. Toothless cowered behind Merida’s skirts, which hid nothing but his face.

“This is the most sacred of all God’s ceremonies. And you two . . . Philistines have spat on it!”

“At’s nae fair!” Merida held up her free hand in protest. “The dragon was the one who spat.”

“What’s a Philistine?” Hiccup asked Merida out of the corner of his mouth.

“Means the same as barbarian, I think.” Merida answered in kind.

“Well, he’s not wrong.” Hiccup shrugged.

Elinor put a delicate hand on the Priest’s shoulder. “Perhaps we should wrap this up before anything else happens.”

“Because no one’s been turned into a bear,” the first triplet said around his mother’s other hand.

“Yet,” the other triplet said.

“The day isn’t over, is it?” The other, other triplet added.

“Boys, hush.” Fergus said mildly.

The priest huffed. “Very well. You’re married. Good day!” He closed his book with a snap and stalked down the hall.

Merida and Hiccup watched the irate priest shoulder his way past Toothless.

“That went well,” Hiccup said.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I see a lot of fiction that deals with handfasting as a non-Christian tradition. But the early Christian Church recognized handfasting as a legitimate form of marriage ceremony. 
> 
> (The early church, which was trying to make it easy for pagans to convert, looked the other way at a lot of behavior that later priests would side-eye. For example, priests in what would become England would consider any marriage valid. Two people could say “I choose to be married to this person” in the woods with no witnesses and the church would recognize it as legitimate. To their point of view, better married than living in sin.)
> 
> However there never was a “marriage for a year and a day.” As far as I can tell, That’s a made up trope from romance novels. 
> 
> Courting cats were absolutely a Norse tradition, though. They honored the Goddess Freja, who rode in a wagon pulled by cats. 
> 
> The Emperor of Constantinople absolutely had a personal legion of Norse warriors guarding him. They were called the Varangian Guard. If you go to the Hagia Sophia, you can see where one of them carved graffiti in runes on the walls. It says “Halvdan carved these runes.”
> 
> Hiccup talked about people losing fingers going a-viking. From the Norse point of view, Viking wasn’t something you were. It was something you did occasionally. Some of the “Vikings” weren’t even Norse. When the Danes invaded Mercia, they recruited local proto-English peasant farmers looking to move up in the world. 
> 
> The English were the ones who started calling them Vikings. 
> 
> I imagine the conversation went something like this: 
> 
> “Excuse me. Why are you stealing my sheep?”
> 
> “I’ve gone a-viking. That’s just what I do.”
> 
> “Oh, so you’re a Viking. Good show. Pip pip. Carry on.”
> 
> But both Brave and HTTYD are a big anachronistic stew anyway. So I’m not letting the facts get in the way of a good story.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The newlyweds prepare for their upcoming adventure while figuring out how their two seperate lives are going to mesh.

Hiccup set his hammer aside, wiped his brow and took a sip of the watered down mead. He examined his handiwork in satisfaction. This wider buckle would be make the larger saddle more comfortable for Toothless. 

And in the event that they did find a Night Fury in Miklagård and Merida did bond with it, then they could use his old saddle. 

He looked up as Fergus entered the forge, carrying a burlap sack with him. 

“Merida said I might find you here, lad.” His new father-in-law looked over the various projects Hiccup had set out to complete before the two of them left on their mission. “Where might your wee black beastie be?”

“Probably napping wherever it’s sunniest. He took a liking to the south tower.” Hiccup stepped away from the anvil, clasping his gloved hands anxiously. Was he supposed to bow? What was the etiquette when you find yourself married to a princess for a year and a day? He dipped into a half- bow, hesitated, then righted himself again.

Fergus raised an eyebrow at him. “Leave off, Lad. We won’t stand on ceremony. Assuming that hoyden ye’ married lets you live, we’ll figure out some protocol for ye down the line.” 

“Er . . . You do realize that our marriage is supposed to be dissolved this time next year?” Hiccup said.

“That’s what I’ve heard.” Fergus nodded. The twinkle in his eye belayed his words. “Incidentally, me father was named Robert. It’s a fine, strong name for a wee barin.” 

“I’ll keep that in mind.” Hiccup gestured for Fergus to take the stool in the corner.

“What are ye’ on about today?” Fergus looked over the leather saddle Hiccup was tinkering with. 

“It’s a new saddle design for Toothless,” Hiccup explained. “It should let Merida ride pillion.”

“And this?” Fergus held up Hiccup’s gift for Merida. 

Hiccup took it out of Fergus’s hands, tucking it away in his tunic. “Just a token.” 

Fergus smiled, but turned his attention to the tail fin Hiccup planned to remake next. The new fin would allow Toothless to take over control and fly independently if he needed to. That way If they were ever in a position where Hiccup was knocked out again, Toothless wouldn’t be vulnerable.

He couldn’t believe that they hadn’t come up with something like this before now.

“Speaking of tokens,” The King cleared his throat. “I have a couple of gifts for ye, from meself and Elinor.”

Hiccup looked up in surprise. “You didn’t have to do that.” He scratched the back of his bad knee with his good foot. 

“Don’t fash ye’self over it.” Fergus waved him away. “If you’re going to Constantinople, you’ll need to represent the clan properly.”

“I’m not . . . really a —“

Fergus stopped him with a sharp look. 

“Lad, you may not be a Highlander, but you married me daughter. That creates a tie not easily broken.” 

Fergus stood now, his bulk towering over Hiccup, reminding him of his dad. Thoughts of Stoick weighed heavy on his heart. 

But there was little time to dwell. The King opened the burlap sack, and brought out a tied bundle of plaid, similar to the skirt he was wearing. 

Hiccup had a sinking feeling that he’d be expected to wear a dress, very soon. 

“There’s a custom in the Highlands,” Fergus’s voice carried the weight of tradition. “When a boy becomes a man, his father gives him seven ells of clan tartan to make his best pladdie. 

“When that man takes a bride, he cuts off an ell for her to make a fine shawl. She’ll put aside her clan tartan on her wedding day and wear his colors to show that she’s part of a new family.”

Fergus thrust the folded cloth into Hiccup’s nerveless arms. “Mind the broach pins.” 

Hiccup fumbled the bundle onto the table. 

“When his children are born,” Fergus continued, “each child gets wrapped in an ell of family tartan. O’ course, your own da’ probably didn’t have a tartan to give ye’, you bein’ a Viking and all.”

“No,” Hiccup shook his head. “No tartan for the Northman.” 

“Thought not,” Fergus grunted at that. “Merida is not one to lay aside her own colors, anyway. And even if the two o’ you come back in a year and say you’re ready to quit one another, you’ll always be a part ‘o the clan.” 

Fergus nodded as if the matter was settled. “So if anyone in Constantinople asks: remember that you may be Hiccup Hooligan Horrible th’ Third. But you’re also Hiccup O’DunBroch.” 

“Horrendous Haddock.” Hiccup said, then started at the shakiness in his voice. Why was it so hard to talk all of a sudden? He blinked, his eyes suddenly misty. 

Fergus looked at Hiccup quizzically.

“My name,” Hiccup said around the lump in his throat. “It’s Hiccup Horrendous Haddock the third. My tribe’s name is the Hairy—oh never mind.” He wiped his eyes. 

Fergus smiled kindly. “Merida will show you how to wrap it proper. Just remember, if you have a passel o’ wee ones, like I did, this won’t be your best pladdie anymore.”

Hiccup looked over Fergus’s great bulk. If the Queen, Merida and each of her brothers got an ell of the cloth, then there was no way that the remaining two ells would make a respectable man dress. Or even preserve the King’s modesty.

“I don’t think that will be a problem,” Hiccup said. “Since Merida and I are parting ways in a year.”

“O’ course, lad.” Fergus chuckled, slapping his knee above his peg. “Well, hold onto it all the same, in case you someday have wee ones o’your own. It’ll make good nappies.” 

Fergus clapped Hiccup on the shoulder. With a grunt, he got to his feet and left the forge.

Hiccup removed his gloves. He unfolded the tartan carefully. Inside the folds of cloth were a set of brooches worked in the DunBroch clan symbol: a sword laying on a field of knotwork. There was a slight difference, though. The knotwork was designed to look like bears and dragons entertwined. 

Hiccup lifted his chin to hold back his tears as he clutched the tartan to himself. Fergus had been kind to leave and let Hiccup leak water from his eyes in peace. 

—

Hiccup and Toothless followed Merida and three of her Terrible Terrors through the woods. (Elinor had borrowed Malinky shortly after the handfasting to send a message, and the dragon was not back yet.) They’d placed a picnic lunch on the big dragon’s saddle, planning to study Greek and Latin outdoors. 

“When I was a girl, Mum, Da and I used to take picnics in the woods. It was the only place ‘Da thought was safe after . . .” Merida trailed off.

“After?” Hiccup prompted. 

“After Mor’du attacked us and Da lost his leg.”

Hiccup winced. “But he’s gone, right? Your mother killed him when she was turned into a bear.”

“Long dead,” Merida said. “The standin’ stones where we found you was where she defeated him. That’s why one o’ the stones is cracked in twa.” 

“You told me that he used to be a human, but you didn’t say how he became a bear.”

“That’s quite a story unto itself,” Merida said. “It began hundreds of years ago. After the Romans pulled back from the walls to the south. In that time, there was a great king who had four talented sons.” 

Merida led them through twisting forest paths as she talked. Here and there, they passed a rotting, pockmarked archery target. Hiccup realized that they were probably where young Merida honed her formidable archery skill. 

They reached a clearing below a massive golden waterfall. A stone pillar rose before the falls. 

“The waterfall is backed by red granite,” Merida said. “When the setting sun hits it just right, the water looks like a pillar of fire. That’s why it’s called the firefalls.” She glanced up at the sky. “If we’re fortunate, we should see it tonight.” 

“This was where your family had picnics?” 

“After Da lost his leg. We thought Mor’Du wouldn’t venture this close to the castle and the village. They say that only the bravest of kings could climb the crone’s tooth and drink from the firefalls.”

“Uh huh.” Hiccup squinted at it. “How old were you when you first drank from the falls?”

“Sixteen,” Merida said. “That was the same week I shot for me own hand and turned Mum into a bear.”

“Eventful week.” 

“Says the man who shot doon a dragon, fixed his tail, graduated dragon fighting school at the top o’ his class, ran away from home and killed a dragon the size of me castle.” Merida ticked each of his accomplishments off on her fingers. “All in a month.” 

“And lost my leg. Can’t forget that.” He hopped on the prosthetic to show her.

Merida looked at him with a soft expression. “You were alone. How did you survive?”

“I had Toothless,” Hiccup said.

The two of them looked back at Toothless. Merida’s terrors had perched on his saddle and were serenading him with their torturous bagpipe-like song. The great, black dragon gave them a flat, annoyed look.

“Well,” Merida said. “Now you have us.” 

She spread a blanket in a shady spot under a tree and set out apples, a crock of cider, cheese, and salted, cured meats. Then she pulled books and scrolls from the basket. Hiccup settled up against Toothless under the tree, with the thickest tome spread out on his knees.

Merida stretched out next to him and shut her eyes.

Hiccup prodded her with his foot. “You’re supposed to be studying with me.”

“Then read to me.” Merida opened one eye. 

“Take turns?” He cajoled. 

“If we must.” Merida put her hands behind her head. 

Hiccup grinned, then turned back to the translation he’d worked on that morning. 

“Sing in me muse, and through me tell the story of that man most skilled in all ways of contending. The wanderer, harried for years on end.” Hiccup read, here and there breaking off to correct a translation error, until he was hoarse. 

“I hope that reading The Odyssey before we take our own journey is not a portent.” Merida said, handing him a mug of the cider. 

“Your turn.” He said. 

Merida sat up and took the second book. “Rage — Goddess, sing the rage of Peleus’ son Achilles, murderous, doomed, that cost the Achaeans countless losses — Och! Mum!”

“Why’d you stop?” Hiccup asked.

“You’re given the story of a wise and crafty wanderer just tryin’ to find home, and I’m reading of a prideful sort who cost the lives of his people through his own bawheid actions.” She shook her head. 

“A little too on-the-nose?” Hiccup asked. 

“Mum loves to say that legends are lessons.” Merida huffed and picked up her book again. 

They continued reading to one another throughout the afternoon. When the golden rays slanted long through the trees and set the firefalls ablaze, Merida packed up their books and supplies. The two of them and the dragons settled on the riverbank to watch the falls. 

“I’ve something for ye’,” Merida stood, looking solemn. Hiccup stood next to her. She drew a long, thin dirk from her belt and passed it to him hilt first. “It’s not a sword, but maybe it’ll appease your gods.”

Hiccup’s hand automatically strayed to the dagger he kept for sharpening his pencil. 

“I couldn’t see you usin’ a claymore.” Merida continued. “Not when ye have such a fine sword of your own. But I thought this bonnie knife might be useful.”

“I’m sure it will be. I have something for you as well, m’lady.” 

“Oh?” Merida raised an eyebrow. 

He pulled a ring from the pocket where he’d hid it from Fergus earlier. Unstrapping his knife, he placed the ring over the guard and passed them both to Merida, hilt first. “This is another custom. You don’t have to give me a ring in return, though.”

“Hiccup!” Merida gasped, covering her mouth. 

“I made it a few days ago. I guessed your ring size. If I’m wrong, I can fix it.”

Merida smiled in delight as she took the knife. It vanished somewhere into the folds of her skirts. She slipped the ring onto the third finger of her left hand, then held it up to show that the fit was perfect.

“I made it from cold iron,” Hiccup said. “If you have no other way to defend yourself from a fairy, you can always punch them.”

A strange look crossed Merida’s face. “Hiccup, after we part ways, we’ll still be friends, right?”

Hiccup’s mouth suddenly felt dry. He swallowed convulsively. “Odin willing,” He stammered. “I’ve come to treasure our friendship.”

“Me too.” She seized his hand and held it between them. “I wish we’d been shut of that priest and done things the auld way.”

“How would it have gone?” Hiccup breathed. He stared into her fathomless blue eyes, hardly daring to move. 

Merida wrapped her tartan sash around their wrists, binding them. Then she recited a lengthy speech in Gaelic. 

“Don’t walk before me, for I will not follow.” She switched to his tongue. 

“Don’t walk behind me, for I will not lead. But walk beside me, and I will share your burden, and make it light. 

“You cannot possess me for I belong to myself. But while we both wish it, I give you that which is mine to give.

“You cannon command me, for I am a free person. But I shall serve you in those ways you require.”

Hiccup wanted to give her his own pledge, but he couldn’t remember the vows he’d heard from the infrequent weddings during his youth in Berk. Back then he’d mostly tried to keep out of everyone’s way and avoid doing anything to wreck the ceremony. 

He thought about what Fergus had asked of him. About walking with Merida to the ends of the earth. Just like that, the words came to him.

“I pledge to you my living and my dying, each equally in your care. I shall be a shield for your back and you for mine.” He said. 

“This is my wedding vow to you. This is the marriage of equals.”

Merida looked surprised, but pleased at his words. They stood together, hands bound, watching the sunset paint the firefalls vivid golden. When the last rays of the sun disappeared from the top of the falls, they untied their hands and started back to the castle. 

As they crossed the castle green, Hiccup noticed the familiar shape of a longship sitting in the harbor. 

He squinted in the twilight, and saw Astrid’s nadder, Stormfly, land on the bow of the ship. Hiccup watched with a sinking feeling as It was joined by Thornado, Stoick’s thunderdrum. 

“We’re so dead!” He groaned.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The tartan customs that Fergus describes here are entirely fictional. I borrowed them from Laura J. Underwood’s book Ard Magistr. But if we’re going to be pendantic about it, Most kilt-wearing lore, including official clan tartains were made up much later, anyway. 
> 
>  
> 
> The vows that Hiccup and Merida share here are based on two or three different versions of Celtic vows that I cobbled together. 
> 
>  
> 
> The firefalls in Brave are based on Horsetail Falls in Yosemite National Park. You can see a video of them at sunset, when they look like they’re on fire. 
> 
> https://youtu.be/cAO02TiiHSs


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hiccup faces the consequences of his actions, and he and Merida go on an adventure.

Hiccup’s dad and Astrid were standing at the prow of the longship when he, Merida and the dragons walked up the DunBroch castle dock. They looked down at him with twin unreadable expressions.

Hiccup swallowed convulsively. “Well, I’d better go explain,” he said.

“Do ‘ye need me to go with ye’? Merida asked.

“I’d better do this on my own,” he told her.

She patted his shoulder, a sympathetic smile on her face. “I’ll go find Mum and ‘Da.” She pointed at the castle.

Toothless whined. Hiccup patted the dragon’s nose, then headed up the gangplank.

“Dad, Astrid. What a surprise.” He rubbed the back of his neck.

“Is it?” Stoick said mildly. He pulled Hiccup’s note from his tunic. “Not as surprised as I was to find this pinned to the table at home.” He cleared his throat and squinted at the paper. “Dad, found another Night Fury. Going to go check it out. Gobber and Fishlegs are in charge of the school while I’m gone.”

Hiccup winced. In retrospect, he probably should have discussed his plans for leaving rather than just impulsively jumping on his dragon and taking off.

“You Idiot.” Astrid shook her head, sounding disappointed with him. “Did you stop to think that we need Gobber and Fishlegs elsewhere?”

Hiccup sighed, looking down. Having both Stoick and Astrid disappointed with him was just about the worst feeling he could imagine.

“You’re right,” he said. “You’re both right. I screwed up. Again. But I found evidence of another Night Fury. And we thought Toothless was the only one!”

“Then, after you disappeared again, we got a courier dragon from the King and Queen of DunBroch, letting us know that you’re here.” Astrid spread her arms, indicating the castle. “Is this where the other Night Fury went?”

“N-No,” Hiccup said. “I thought I needed Merida’s help.”

Astrid sighed, putting her hands on her hips. “Hiccup, you have so much potential! if only you’d focus and think the consequences of your actions through!”

Hiccup looked down again, mortified at having the girl of his dreams lecturing him like a mom would a son.

Stoick glanced from Astrid to Hiccup. A look of understanding crossed his face. “Astrid, why don’t you head up to the castle? Hiccup and I should probably talk things over, man-to-man.”

Astrid pressed her lips together and nodded. She touched Hiccup’s shoulder briefly, conveying with her eyes that she expected him to do better in the future, then strode up the rocky hillside.

“Sorry dad,” Hiccup said to the ground. “I guess I messed up again.”

“Look at me, Son.” Stoick said, gently. “You’re a man now. Look me in the face like one.”

Hiccup cautiously peeked up through his bangs at his father. Stoick looked stern, but not actually all that mad.

He held the note out to Hiccup. “No more of this. Your business is dragons now. If you feel like you need to go chasing one, tell me — as your chief —and we’ll arrange it. But don’t leave the village or the school in a bind.”

Hiccup scratched his head, feeling off-balance. His dad was speaking to him like an adult?

He thought about what Stoick said about planning things out.

That was what Merida always did, Hiccup realized. She kept her parents - her rulers - informed about what she needed to do. Asked them for advice.

And Elinor hadn’t tried to stop her. Just creatively found a way for Merida to do what she needed without letting her station as Princess get in the way.

“In the future, I’ll try.” Hiccup said. “I’m sorry, I didn’t think of how my disappearing suddenly would affect everyone.”

“It’s not just that. Hiccup, you’re my son. And I just got you back.”

Hiccup felt his heart sink. He bit down on his lower lip and breathed through his nose. When he felt he could speak without his voice cracking, he continued.

“I know, Dad. It’s just been hard. I feel like I’m a square peg trying to jam myself back into the same round hole that never really fit to begin with.”

He rubbed the back of his head in frustration. “But I already talked this over with Merida. She showed me that I was going about this all wrong.”

“That’s another thing,” Stoick put the note away. “The Queen’s letter mentioned an engagement.”

His heart leaped from his toes into his throat. “If you’re upset about that—”

Stoick chuckled. “That’s actually the part I’m not upset about.”

“You’re not?” Hiccup blinked

“I’ve been working toward a greater alliance with this kingdom since before I asked the princess to help me find you,” Stoick said, laughing. “Unlike the days when we used to go a-viking, we can actually be choosy about what we bring back to Berk if we trade.”

“And then they welcome us back.” Hiccup smiled in relief. This was going better than he expected. It looked like his dad’s bull-headed vikingness might have mellowed with age.

Stoick gripped Hiccup’s shoulder, and pulled him into the most awkward hug of their lives.

Aaaaaannnnnd now things were back to being weird.

He released Hiccup, and thumped his back. Hiccup stumbled forward. “A marriage would only strengthen an alliance. Well done, son.”

“Thanks?” Hiccup scratched the back of his head, hoping to end this surreal conversation. There was just one thing. “Er . . . The Queen did explain the details? It’s just . . . by their custom, this is only a trial marriage. After a year and a day we can either make it permanent, or dissolve it.”

Stoick stood there, mouth hanging open. Hiccup cleared his throat. “Dad?” He waved a hand in front of his dad’s face. When there was no response, he looked at Toothless in concern. The big black dragon shrugged in response.

“Oh great, I think we broke him.”

“I’m not sure I understand the Scots.” Stoick blinked and shook his head at last. “Astrid and I will speak to the King and Queen. We’ll work this out.”

At the mention of Astrid, Stoick winced. He gave Hiccup an apologetic look. “You . . . You don’t mind being married to the princess, do you?”

Hiccup sighed in frustration. Apparently he hadn’t been very good at hiding his crush back then. Or his more recent pining.

He knew he’d probably always have a soft spot for Astrid, but he also knew that he couldn’t keep nursing that wish. Maybe down some other forking branch of Yggdrasil, one where he’d stayed behind in Berk instead of running, he and Astrid might have had a shot. But here, that was a door that had never been opened to him, and never would be.

As Merida said of Young MacGuffin: their lives had gone in different directions.

Hiccup thought about how the last few days had been since the handfasting, and what it might be like being married to Merida for the rest of his life. Days filled with studying, heads pressed together. Or shoulder to shoulder on one of her adventures. Maybe even simply training dragons side by side.

The idea had appeal.

It helped that she’d never met him as a scrawny Viking kid. She treated him as an equal and a potential friend from that first moment on the boat.

“No, Dad. I don’t mind being married to the princess. Merida’s actually a friend.”

“Good,” Stoick nodded. More, Hiccup thought, to reassure himself than his son. “Good. Then you two go find this dragon you’re set on finding. You try not to lose your new wife along the way. When you get back, we’ll make sure you have a proper Norse ceremony.”

“One thing,” Hiccup said, glad to be out of hugging territory at last. “I don’t think Merida wants a courting cat. She already has four Terrors.”

Stoick scratched his beard. “We’ll consult with Gothi back home. Perhaps Freyja would consider that a fitting tribute.”

“Freyja’s never seen Wee Dingbat.” Hiccup said wryly.

—

“I’ve got it!” Merida stood from her chair, the page Hiccup had gotten from the trader in her hand.

“Wazzit?” Hiccup sat up from where he’d fallen asleep on his book, drool dried on his cheek. Between the rain pattering on the stained glass windows, the crackling of the fire in the hearth and Toothless’s soft wheezing as he slept, Hiccup hadn’t been able to stay awake.

“We thought this was a poster. But it’s not an advertisement at all. It’s an account of the Great Palace o’ Constantinople.” Merida waved the page at him. “It talks o’ all the wonders there.”

“What kind of wonders?” Hiccup stretched, suppressing a yawn.

“Clockwork birds that sing, trees made o‘ gold and silver. Rooms made o’ purple marble. Pictures made o’ wee bits of stone. The emperor’s throne can rise to the ceiling. That sort o’ thing.”

“Did you say clockwork birds?” Hiccup leaned forward, rubbing the sleep from his eyes.

Merida huffed. “O’ course that’d get your attention.” She said.

“How do they sing?” he wondered.

“If I ever need ye out of my hair, all I need to do is give ye something to take apart or a box o’ cogs an’ springs.”

“Were they large birds?”

Merida rolled up the page she’d been translating, and used it to swat Hiccup on the forehead. “It also says that there is a menagerie with all sort o’ beasties.”

Hiccup took the paper and examined it. Then he opened another book and looked over a map of Constantinople. “This changes things.”

“Aye,” Merida nodded. “For one, it’s the Emperor's private menagerie. Which means it isnae open to the public. And certainly nae open to a couple o’ “barbarians” from the edge of the known world, royalty or nae.”

“We don’t even know where it is,” Hiccup said. “We’ll have to find it without getting caught, then determine if there is a Night Fury there.”

“At could take some time,” Merida said. “If you could fit all of Berk into just one of the Emperor’s feasting halls, then the entire palace complex must be huge.”

“Then if we find one, we’ll have to keep going back to where it’s being held until you can bond with it. We can’t even break it out until we do all that.” Hiccup scratched his chin.

“At’s a tall order,” Merida sat back, looking up at the ceiling. “We’re nae’ going to get by just stayin’ in an inn for a week. We’re going to have to find a house for however long it takes.”

“Which means - we need money,” Hiccup drummed his fingers on the table.

“I don’t suppose dragons hoard gold the way they do in the stories, do they, Dragon Boy?” Merida blinked innocently at him.

Hiccup grew still. Then a predatory smile crossed his face. “I know someone who does.”

—

A pair of ships cut like knives through the black waves of the sea under the moonless canopy of stars.

The scant lights of a sleeping village flickered before them, the occupants never realizing the imminent danger.

Without warning, bolts of sizzling blue plasma shot seemingly from nowhere to slam into the ships, splintering decks and setting fire to the sails and rigging.

With confusing and contradictory shouts, the crew members of each ship dropped their weapons, the target before them forgotten. Instead they reached for buckets to smother the fire.

Which was an unfortunate decision, really, as seconds later the ship’s deck splintered apart under the combined firepower of dozens of formerly- captive dragons intent on blasting their way out of the hold.

Some of the dragons took off into the night sky. Others, those with higher functioning brains, turned on their captors. Before long, what was left of the ships were nothing but smoldering charcoal left to sink beneath the waves.

—

Tiny, flickering lights appeared in the village. All eyes were no doubt drawn to the fires at sea. No one would have bothered to look North.

So there was no one to see the lithe, black shape of the dragon that landed on the rocky shore a mile north of the village.

If anyone had been there to watch, they would have seen the silhouette of a monstrous rider, clad entirely in black dragon scales, slide off the beast’s back.

The rider gathered enough driftwood to make a bonfire. Then the dragon set the wood ablaze.

Within minutes, a sea serpent glided through the waves onto the beach, guided by a second, eldritch rider, like the unholy cross between a frog and a seal. It sat atop a number of chests that had been tied to the serpent’s back with fishing nets.

The second rider slid from the back of the serpent. Once the two riders had retrieved the chests, the sea serpent retreated back into the water.

Then the first rider spoke. “Well hello, Selkie Maid! If I hide your seal skin, would you consider staying with me?”

At this point, had there been any witnesses, they would have fled into the night.

—

Merida slapped Hiccup on the arm, Then removed her hood and mask and spit the end of a reed from her teeth. “Cheeky arse!”

“Ow!” Hiccup removed his helm, shaking out his own shaggy hair.

“I don’t know who is more daft,” she said. “You for thinkin’ up this fish garb, or me for agreeing to try it out.”

“How did it go?” He asked, looking over his new invention with an assessing eye.

“The seams let in just a bit o’ sea water,” she touched the shoulder where they’d stitched and glued the sealskins together. “But for the most part I was warm enough. Though I cannae feel me toes at the moment.”

Hiccup pulled a wool blanket from Toothless’s saddle bag and wrapped it around Merida, pulling her closer to the fire.

“And you could move in it?”

“Better n’ me kyrtle.” Merida said, holding out her hands to warm them over the flames. “I was able to climb up the sides o’ the ships, swipe the treasure and open the dragon cages without any o’ the raiders seein’ me. O’course, that’s more to do wi’ yur distraction than any stealth on me own part.”

The two of them watched as the ships burned in the distance.

“That’s two more ships of dragon raiders no one will miss.” Hiccup said with grim satisfaction.

“Think anyone survived?” Merida asked.

“If they had the sense to swim to shore,” Hiccup said. “It’ll be up to the villagers to decide what to do with them. Though I don’t imagine justice would be merciful.

“These raiders capture dragons and then set them against villages like this one. Then they hire out their services as dragon hunters and exterminate the dragons that they released in the first place.”

“Good riddance, then.” Merida clapped her hands together. “We’d best be away. A’fore we’re seen and mistaken for one o’ these raiders. We should have enough gold to set us up proper in Constantinople.”

Hiccup bowed mockingly to her. “As M’lady commands.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A thing that annoyed me in some Mericcup fiction I read was Astrid’s complete character assassination. In canon, she’s a strong, caring and thoughtful person who loves her village and is secure with her place in the world. 
> 
> Flawed, yes. She’s hella competitive, and dosen’t have much use for Hiccup in the first movie. But imho, that’s because she initially sees him as a liability to the village. And then when he gets good at dragon training, she sees him as a rival. 
> 
> But she’s also quick to let him try to change the village’s mind in his own way, once she understands, and then to challenge him in order to spur him to action. In canon, she’s a perfect complement to Hiccup. They make a good team. 
> 
> If you don’t want to write Hiccstrid, that’s fine. There are a lot of legitimate ways to write around it. Life can get in the way of even couples who are perfect for each other. People can grow apart, opportunities can be missed, and there can be more than one person in the world who is perfect for you. 
> 
> IMO, if you have to write a character wildly out of character to make your OTP work, you’re not giving enough thought to your plot. 
> 
> There is no record of an actual menagerie in Constantinople during the Byzantine era. Accounts show that there was a menagerie during the later Ottoman period. But I needed a menagerie for my story, so now it has one.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Highlanders and Vikings both get a taste of what passes for entertainment among the tribes. And Hiccup and Merida have their first argument.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was really my favorite chapter. I was inspired by a lot of the bonus materials from Brave and HTTYD. It was just a fun chapter to play around with.

An unholy buzzing sound like that of Niflhel’s own apiary drilled into Hiccup’s brain at sunrise. He rolled over and pulled the feather pillow over his head.

“Dingbat! Knock it off!” He mumbled, reaching out to put his hand over the mouth of the tiny dragon that for some reason liked to sleep on the table next to his head.

“‘Snot Dingbat,” Merida mumbled sleepily next to him. “Today was the games, remember?”

Not Dingbat? “You mean he actually learned that sound from somewhere?”

“Aye.” Merida sat up with a stretch. “It’s the pipes. It’s tradition to take a piper to battle. The sound scares the enemy.”

“I bet it does.” Hiccup said, sitting up and rubbing his eyes. “You know, we don’t have to wait until tomorrow to leave for Mik—Constantinople. We could slip out right now and avoid this whole spectacle.”

With a sigh, Merida swung her feet out of the bed. She dropped into a heap next to Toothless, scratching him behind the ear flaps. Toothless rumbled contentedly, flopping his head into Merida’s lap.

“You expect Toothless to carry all these chests o’ gold?”

Hiccup looked around at the heavy boxes they’d shoved haphazardly against the walls of the bedroom. Not to mention all the crates of clothing that Elinor swore they would need and Merida swore just as vehemently that they would not need.

Toothless’s flat, unfriendly expression told Hiccup exactly what his best buddy thought of that idea.

“‘Sides,” Merida said. “Mum says It’s important for the clans to see that we accept ye’ as a part o’ the family afore you and I leave. An’ she knows her strategy when it comes to politics.”

“I’m not wearing a dress, though.” Hiccup scratched his side.

Merida rolled her eyes. “No one expects ya’ ta’ wear a kilt. Big babby.” She turned back to toothless. “Innit’ right, Toothless?” She increased the rate of scritches. Toothless’s back leg kicked the air.

“Don’t wear your armor, though.” She said to Hiccup. “Mum wants ye to look like a nice, mostly- harmless Norse princeling, not a Viking who’ll make off wi’ the silver when we’re nae’ looking.”

“As M’lady commands,” Hiccp said around a yawn.

“Toothless, yur an ambassador of sorts for dragons today. The clans’ll be judging you as well. So if you could look as . . . well, as toothless as possible.”

Toothless’s expression seemed to say “you have got to be kidding me.”

“Ah know.” Merida held her hands up. “Ah hate keepin’ up appearances too, but this is for the good o’ all dragons.”

The dragon’s expression shifted into wide-eyed, kitten-like cuteness.

“At’s perfect,” Merida said.

Hiccup reached for his prosthetic, to find it missing from the bedside. “Mer, have you seen?”

“This?” Merida held up the prosthetic. “Toothless had it.” She flipped it up onto the mattress.

“You know my leg isn’t a chew toy, don’t you, Bud?” Hiccup said as he strapped the prosthetic into place.

Toothless rolled into his back in a silent order that Merida give him belly scritches, ignoring Hiccup.

“You’re spoiling him.” Hiccup said.

“I am nae.”

“See, this is where it starts,” Hiccup said, pulling on a green tunic. “Next thing you know, you’ll be the one riding him and I’ll be forced to use that rumblehorn you ride.”

“Angus isnae’ a . . . whatever you just called him.”

“Rumblehorn,” Hiccup said.

“He’s nae that. He’s just a wee Clydesdale.”

“Wee? Merida, he’s bigger than Toothless.”

“I’m going ta’ miss him.” Merida sighed. She hugged Toothless around the middle, like he was a child’s doll. “Angus is more’n just a wee pony. He’s been mah’ best friend since I was a lass. And now I have to leave him behind while I go ha’way around the world.”

Hiccup frowned in sympathy. He’d couldn’t imagine having to leave Toothless behind. His dragon was more than just a best friend, he was like a brother.

Speaking of . . . “Your brothers will take good care of Angus,” Hiccup said.

“Aye, and use him in their mad schemes, no doubt.”

A knock at the door drew both their attention. Before Merida could bid whoever it was to enter, one of the red-haired boys stuck his head into the room, eyes gleaming with the promise of trouble.

“Speak o’ the devil.” Merida said. “Mornin’ Harris.” The two siblings held a complicated conversation using only facial expressions.

“O’course! We’ll be glad to help,” Merida said at last.

Harris smiled in satisfaction before withdrawing from the room.

“What did you just get us into?” Hiccup asked.

“The boys want to stage a wee play for our guests today.”

“He never said a word. How did you get all that?”

“‘Twas plain as the look on his face.” Merida shrugged.

“Wonderful,” Hiccup said flatly. “Is this the kind of thing you do around here for fun?”

“Mum always had me recite poetry an’ help the boys wi’ plays. Said it helped us learn to speak in public and have a little culture.”

“It taught your brothers to speak in public?”

“Aye. Granted, they’re boys of few words, but they’re not shy. What did yur people do for fun when you were a lad?”

“Standard Viking stuff. Hunt dragons. Talk about hunting dragons. Compose skalds about dragon hunting.” Hiccup shrugged. “There was always the summer regatta. And in winter, we went bobsledding.”

“What’s that?”

“Well, first you have to find a guy named Bob.”

“You’re joking.”

He held his finger and thumb an inch apart. “Maybe just a little.” Then he belted a jerkin on over his tunic. “Are you going to stay here and play with the overgrown lizard all day, or are you going to get dressed and come to breakfast?”

Merida gave Toothless one more fond pat. She scratched under the chin of each of her own Terrors and then pulled a folded tartan from her wardrobe. “Just have to pleat my arisaid, and we can be on our way.”

—  
The clansmen from the other three clans sat in loose knots about the great hall, helping themselves to porridge and sausages and other meat of dubious origin.

A hush fell over the great hall as Merida and Hiccup stepped fully into the room, Toothless following behind.

“Why don’t they paint a picture? I’m sure it would last longer.” Merida grumbled. She took Hiccup’s arm and lifted her chin in an imitation of her mother.

She seemed tense, her posture rigid and her hands grasping like claws until she spotted the high table. Something she saw there — or rather didn’t see — made her relax.

The lords sat in places of honor up at the high table. The young lords were conspicuously absent, except for Wee Dingwall.

Hiccup suspected from what he’d gathered of the young lords that in Young Lord MacGuffin’s case, there was possibly a wounded heart involved, and in Young Lord Macintosh’s case a wounded ego.

He wasn’t sure Wee Dingwall had the presence of mind to notice.

A few of the guests shot curious glances at Stoick and Astrid, who were sitting next to them.

“There ye’ are!” Elinor looked up from her correspondence when Merida and Hiccup took their seats. “I was about to send Maudie after ye.” Her eyes narrowed as she looked over Merida’s appearance. Merida ignored the visual inspection, focusing instead on swiping the last two tarts before the triplets could.

She passed one to Hiccup, who was sitting stiffly under the Queen’s scrutiny.

“Princess,” Young Dingwall said in a dreamy sort of way.

“Er, Wee Dingwall?” Merida raised an eyebrow.

“I’ve composed a sonnet in honor of your mastery over the Áillen in battle.”

A hush fell over the table as all of the lords turned to Merida to see what she would say.

“‘At’s verra flatterin’, milord. But I ha’nae faced the Áillen.” A blush spread across Merida’s face. “You’re thinkin’ o’ Fionn MacCoul.”

“Am I?” Wee Dingwall said.

“An easy mistake to make,” Lord Dingwall said.

“Aye,” Lord Macintosh rolled his eyes. “The Princess looks just like a seven foot Irishman wi’ white hair. Easy mistake.”

Astrid, who had been taking a drink just as Lord Macintosh spoke, now tried to hold in both her laughter and mead. She swallowed, then erupted in a fit of coughing. Stoick clapped her on the back, nearly knocking her from her seat.

Elinor turned to Maudie and whispered into the auld maid’s ear.

“Och, Yer in for it now, laddie.” Merida said out of the corner of her mouth. “I know that look. Mum’s a mind to make you one o’ her projects. Best run now and save yurself.”

Hiccup was halfway from his seat when Stoick stopped him with a hand on his shoulder. “Vikings don’t run, Son.”

“Yeah,” Hiccup shot back. “But Vikings also don’t wear dresses.”

“It wouldnae’ be that bad, lad.” Lord Macintosh said. “She’d make sure everra one could see yur bonnie knees.” He scooted back from the table and waved to his own kilt and exposed knobby knees.

“Mixed blessin’ In Laird Dingwall’s case.” Lord MacGuffin said mildly. Lord Dingwall looked like he might upend his plate of mysterious brown meats on Lord MacGuffin.

“After breakfast, we’ll have the opening o’ the games to celebrate your handfasting,” Elinor said. “We’ve added a seat, so that Hiccup can sit next to Merida on the royal dias. Now to make you look regal.”

“Told ‘ye.” Merida sing-songed as Elinor grasped Hiccup’s arm and led him away.

“You too, Toothless!” Elinor called back to the dragon.

Toothless looked to the left and right, as if there was another dragon named Toothless there in the hall that surely had to be the dragon Elinor was talking to. Because she surely couldn’t mean to play dress up with the unholy offspring of lightning and death, could she?

Hiccup sighed. “Come on, Bud.”

The dragon huffed, rolled it’s eyes, and then followed Hiccup.

Once they were gone, Stoick cleared his throat. “Princess, May I have a word with you?” He nodded to the door leading to the castle grounds.

Merida took a drink of tea to wash down her tart, then nodded. She tucked her hands behind her back and followed the big Viking. As she passed Fergus’s seat, her father gave her a concerned look. But Merida smiled at him and continued out the door.

Merida led the Chieftan to the castle wall overlooking the inlet. If her father looked out the window, he would see them as they talked.

Stoick lived up to his name, betraying nothing of his thoughts with either word or expression. The two of them watched as Fergus’s men set up the archery butts on the castle green below.

“I meant to thank you before now for bringing my son back to me,” Stoick said at last. “I didn’t expect to be welcoming you to the family as well when I did so.”

“Neither did I, If it comes to it.” Merida clasped her hands behind her back.

“Hiccup tells me that you plan to dissolve your union in a year.”

Merida shifted, face flaming. “That’s just an option, if it comes to it. I’m in no position to settle down, and me track record w’ courtin’ tells me that I’m nae the easiest person to live with. In a year Hiccup may have had his fill o’ me.”

“Do you dislike Hiccup?” Stoick asked her.

“O’course nae!” Merida shook her head emphatically. “He’s become one o’ me best friends.”

Stoick turned to gaze out across the water, eyes unfocused. “There is a lot of his mother in him. They were both more children of Loki than children of Thor.” He sounded subdued.

“Hiccup believes the best of everyone. But I think he needs someone who believes in him. Other than his dragon, of course.”

Merida leaned against the battlement, looking out over the ship that would take them to Constantinople. “What was his mother’s name?”

“Valka,” Stoick’s eyes crinkled at the corners. A fine name for a little girl.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Merida said.

—  
“Hiccup, are ye here?” Merida rapped on the door of her old room.

There was a crashing sound from the other side of the door. “Be right out!”

Merida reached for the handle. But before she could open the door, Hiccup slipped out. His green tunic and plain brown jerkin had been replaced with a white tunic with elaborate blackwork embroidery at the sleeves and collar. The green colored jerkin he wore over it was also covered in knotwork dragons stitched in gold thread. A baldric in the DunBroch tartan bisected his torso.

Merida let out a low whistle, twirling her finger to indicate that Hiccup should turn. “‘At’s some of me mum’s better needlework, and at’s sayin’ something. She and her maids must’ve worked through the night to finish it.”

Hiccup grinned broadly. Merida couldn’t help but smile back. She’d never noticed that he had adorably gapped teeth.

She suddenly realized that Hiccup’s ever present shadow was missing. “Where’s Toothless?”

Hiccup grimaced. He opened the door. “Toothless! Come out and show Merida how you look.”

Behind the door, Toothless made a grumpy sound.

“I know you don’t like it! Come out and show Merida anyway.”

With a snort of displeasure, the dragon slithered out the door.

The Queen and her ladies had put him in some kind of caparison. On a fully armored horse, the drape looked impressive. But on Toothless it looked — “Ye’ look like a couch.”

Merida scrunched up her face and tilted her head sideways.

“Oh, thank gods!” Hiccup said. “I wasn’t sure if that was what your mother was going for.”

“Come on then,” Merida grabbed the edge of the drape and lifted it over Toothless’s back. “Let’s get this off of ye’. Ye look worse’n I did in that French dress wi’ the wimple. An’ I looked like a thistle.”

Merida balled up the caparison and threw it back into the bedroom. “We’ll tell mum it didnae look regal enough.”

—

The piper had started up again, to the accompaniment of several war drummers. They were playing the kind of beat that worked it’s way down into your belly and back up again. Until before you quite realized what you were doing, you were nodding your head, tapping your toes and quite possibly looking for a sword to go do violence on your enemies.

This, Hiccup realized. This was why the Romans stopped trying to conquer the Scots and just built a wall to keep them out. Because they were afraid the Scots would bring their music south.

The three of them joined Merida’s family on the royal dias set up on the castle green. They’d put an uncomfortable looking high-backed wooden chair next to Merida’s throne. Numpity and Bampot were fighting over a dragon nip chew toy under Merida’s seat. Malinky was perched on an armrest singing along with the pipes and drums while Wee Dingbat lay on his back in her chair, snoring with his feet in the air.

Merida picked him up and lay him in her lap. As she stroked the dragon’s belly, it kicked a hind leg. Hiccup was reminded of the tiny lap dogs some ladies carried with them.

A set of bony gray deer hounds were curled up at the foot of Hiccup’s chair in Toothless’s spot. The dragon snorted at them, sending them running to the other end of the platform to hide under the Triplets’ throne. Hiccup marveled at how the hunting dogs looked starved, while the horses looked fat.

Fergus stood and cleared his throat. The pipes and drummers immediately left off. “We welcome the three clans back to DunBroch on this occasion —”

“Auspicious occasion,” Elinor put in.

“Auspicious occasion,” Fergus continued.

“And especially, our esteemed guests from Berk.” Elinor gestured to Stoick and Astrid.

“Right, especially them.” Fergus said. “Now, to honor the peace between our clans, it’s time for the presenting o’ the clan relics.”

“Regrettably, we won’t be presenting the clan relics this year,” Elinor declared.

“Right, no relics!” Fergus said.

“Only because Laird Dingwall tried to brain Laird Macintosh with the Dingwall rock last time.” Merida whispered. “At’ did wonders to honor the peace between the clans.”

“Instead, The princes wish to present a dramatic re-enactment for your viewing pleasure.” Elinor announced.

“So sit down and shut yer gob!” Fergus added.

“That’s our cue,” Merida whispered to Hiccup.

“What? now? I thought there would be a rehearsal or something.” Hiccup tugged at the tight neck of the fancy tunic.

“Just listen to the story, and do what I say.” Merida said.

“I feel like I’m going to be hearing that a lot from you.”

Merida took his hand and pulled him to the front of the platform next to her brothers. Then she cleared her throat and clasped her hands in a speaking pose.

Hiccup looked out at the crowd: a sea of unfamiliar faces awash with brightly-colored plaid. He easily picked out his Dad, Astrid, and their entourage of Vikings. They were the only ones wearing mostly brown.

There was Uncle Spitelout, Phlegma the Fierce and Hoark the Haggard — So pretty much most of the adults who’d thought he was useless as a kid. No pressure there.

“The legend of Mor’Du.” Merida said. “Once, long ago there was a wise king who had four talented sons. The oldest, was gifted with strength.” Merida moved behind Hiccup, holding his arms up in a flexing pose. A couple of ladies in the audience giggled. Hiccup blushed, and smiled nervously.

She poked her head around, resting her chin on his shoulder. “But he wrongly assumed that strength was character.”

“The next son. . . ” She stepped up behind one of the triplets (Hiccup thought it might be Hamish, but he wasn’t sure) just as he pulled a stolen hand pie out from his tunic. He was about to bite into the pie when he noticed all eyes on him. Merida dragged her thumb across her neck in a signal for him to ditch the pie.

“The next son was a just man.” She said wryly.

Probably-Hamish tucked away the stolen pie and smiled. The audience roared in approval. Out of the corner of his eye, Hiccup could see Queen Elinor put a hand over her face.

“The third son was—” Merida broke off, her mouth hanging open mid-speech. Hiccup looked down the line to see the next brother (Harris?) holding the last brother (Hubert?) in a headlock.

“ . . . Compassionate?” Merida raised an eyebrow. Maybe-Harris released Possibly-Hubert. Both boys stood at attention.

The audience hooted their approval.

“And the youngest was wise,” Merida said.

“The time came for the auld King to die. Rather than leave his kingdom to his firstborn, he divided the lands so that all four sons would rule together, each son’s kingdom formin’ a pillar that supported a greater, united land.

“This dinnae sit well with the eldest. When he couldnae best his brothers in battle —“

Before she could continue, the triplets tackled Hiccup, knocking him to the ground. Hiccup could hear Spitelout’s braying laughter over it all.

“Little help?” Hiccup called out.

“Stay doon,” Merida hissed to him. “It’s time for Toothless’s entrance.”

“What?” Hiccup asked.

“Who else is gunna play the bear?”

“Hoo Boy.” Hiccup rolled into a ball, covering his head with his arms.

“As Ah was sayin,” Merida continued. “The eldest brother went to a witch, who gave him a potion ta’ give him the strength o’ ten men. An’ a lovely cheese board.”

Merida waved to Toothless. The dragon ran to Hiccup and flopped on top of him, scooping up the struggling princes by the backs of their shirts.

“Oof!” Hiccup grunted.

“The potion turned the eldest brother into a monstrous bear who easily defeated his brothers. Which is what ye’ get when you go to a witch who only works in bears.”

This time, it seemed like Stoick laughed hardest of all.

“But the spell had another side effect. It trapped the brother in that form. If he’d just reconciled wi’ his brothers, he would have been restored to his human form. Instead, because o’ his pride, he lost what made him human. He became the —”

Merida broke off to look at Toothless. The dragon had made his eyes large and kittenish. The triplets were climbing over him like he was the rose trellis out in the garden.

It was adorable.

“He became the monster we know as Mor’du?” Merida shrugged. “At least until the day he was defeated and freed from the spell. But ‘At’s another story.”

The crowd erupted with thunderous applause. Merida bowed at the waist. Then helped Hiccup to stand. The two of them bowed a second time. Toothless copied the action, dumping Possibly-Harris off of his head and onto the ground.

“I’d say we’re a hit.” Merida said.

“Is that what’s happening?” Hiccup rubbed the back of his head. “Because I feel concussed.”

—

“That was some performance,” Astrid sat on the other end of Hiccup’s bench.

Hiccup looked up from his journal. He’d been sketching Merida the way she looked in the archery contest earlier that day when she’d just loosed her arrow from the bow.

She’d had her eyes narrowed and brow furrowed in concentration. But at that moment it had been like the sun breaking through the clouds as a look of pure joy bloomed on her face. The dart hadn’t even reached the target, but she already knew that her aim was true.

He’d been reaching for his charcoal and journal with itchy fingers before she’d even been declared the winner, and still the best archer in the kingdom.

“Thanks. I think I’m ready to entertain crowds in Vinland.”

“Stick to training dragons.” Astrid said.

“I just hope it helped,” Hiccup said. “We want the people in the kingdom to think we’re harmless.”

“That performance will probably do it.” Astrid smiled. “You’re doing important work, Hiccup.”

“I wish I could see it,” Hiccup sighed, playing with his pencil.

“It’s not just about strengthening the King’s position here,” Astrid said. “This Kingdom, these clans came together because they had a common enemy.”

“Viking raiders,” Hiccup said flatly. Going a-viking was a common practice amongst the Norse. One of the fastest and easiest ways to gain wealth and increase one’s social standing was at the expense of outsiders. There were more than a few karls who had become jarls after going a Viking.

“It wasn’t our village,” Astrid said. “Part of why Berk is still so small is that we’ve always been too busy fighting dragons to go a-viking.”

“That and we were always rebuilding after the latest dragon raid.” Hiccup said.

“But the people who attacked the Scots looked like us.” Astrid said. “We can’t trade with people who think we’re here to steal the sheep every time they see a longship. Now you’re changing that.

“People see the Princess’s funny Northman with his funny dragon, and the next time we come with a load of salted fish or amber or gronckle iron, they’ll remember you and Toothless, not just the raids that came before. And they’ll be willing to trade with us for wool and hides and silver and whatever else we need.

“Who knows?” Astrid said. “Some day you might want to expand your school. Wouldn’t a friendly kingdom be a good place to do that?”

Hiccup grinned ruefully. “I guess I haven’t been thinking about this strategically.”

“That’s why you’re the diplomat and I’m the master strategist,” Astrid said. “It’s my job to think of these things, and your job to look stupid. Good job, by the way.”

Hiccup scratched the back of his head. “Thanks.”

—

“Okay, so Dragon Racing is a high speed, competitive sport.” Hiccup spread the rules out in front of Merida so they could go over them. “We developed it at the academy to help students learn to work together with their dragons.

“I know this Is just an exhibition for the sake of the games, but Astrid will be taking it seriously. No one is more competitive than she is. My dad is no slouch on Thornado, and they’re used to working together.”

While Hiccup talked, Merida scanned the rules.

“We should concentrate on getting the black sheep. That would get us an early lead.” He said.

“You do that,” Merida said. “Me an’ the wee ones will get the others.”

Hiccup looked sideways at Merida’s pack of Terrors. Of course Merida would want to include her pack of dragons.

“I uh . . .” He scratched behind his ear. How to say this delicately? “You do know that the other team has two flyers on it, right?”

“Aye.” Merida sounded unconcerned as she looked over the notes.

“And they’ll be splitting up to cover more territory.”

“That’s why it makes sense to do the same.” Merida said. “I know this land like the back o’ me hand.” Her words left no room for argument.

Hiccup sighed internally. He realized that he lost this battle before it began. He and toothless would just have to get as many points on their own as they could and resign themselves to losing anyway.

—

“Oi! Shut it!” Fergus yelled, silencing the crowd. “The next event is something Hiccup tells me is popular in Berk: racin’ dragons.”

There were gasps of amazement, and a hush descended on the crowd.

“At’ got your attention, did it?” Fergus grinned. “Now this is an exhibition game so that we can get a feel for what it’s like. But Lady Hoefferson and Chief Stoick assured me that if we like what we see, we might be able to train up our own teams and compete with Berk.”

There were murmurs of interest in the crowd. A thrill of excitement ran down Hiccup’s back where he hid behind the dias with toothless.

“First up, team HoefferStoick.”

Hiccup heard gasps of wonder. He peeked around the platform to see Astrid and Stoick land their dragons. Astrid and Stormfly wore blue and orange paint. Stoick and Thornado wore the red of Clan Haddock.

Hiccup inspected Toothless’s paint one more time. To the red of clan Haddock, he’d added the ocean blue of Merida’s clan tartan.

“Stop fussin. Ye look fair ready for battle.” Merida’s chiding voice broke through his thoughts. Hiccup looked up to see her walking toward him. She’d painted whorls over her cheeks and forehead in the same colors as he wore, and matching designs over the wings of her four green Terrors. She carried a shepherd’s crook over one shoulder.

“Is that allowed?” Hiccup asked, indicating the staff. “You’re not going to hit someone with it, are you?”

“I looked. It isanae against the rules.” She frowned. “An’ I’m not suicidal enough to attack one o’ you Vikings. Astrid could pure dead knock me on me arse.”

He held up his hands in surrender. “Okay. Okay. I have no idea what you’re planning to do with it. But go ahead. Odin knows you’ll do whatever you want anyway.”

Merida froze, narrowing her eyes at him. He gulped. Hoo boy! He’d done it now.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” She said, low and dangerous.

“It—it’s just that.” He shut his eyes. With a sinking feeling, he knew nothing he said would get him out of hot water. So he may as well say what he meant. “You don’t explain yourself, Merida. You just do whatever you want. And I’m supposed to just figure out how to work around that.”

Merida looked hurt. She crossed her arms.

“I mean, you showed up on Berk with a headless horse. A headless horse! And all you said was: Aye? What of it?” He fisted his hands through his hair. “I need more than that! If this partnership is going to work between us, I need to know what’s going on.”

“Me?” Merida pointed to herself with one hand. She rolled her wrist so that she could point at him. “You’re the one who has all these assumptions about what me and me wee ones can and cannae do!”

Fergus’s voice, announcing them broke into the tense moment. “And facing team HofferStoick is team . . . Och, I cannae read this writing. Is this two r’s or two c’s?”

“Team Mericcup.” Elinor’s voice spoke up.

“I’ll just show you what me an me wee ones are capable of!” Merida glared at Hiccup once more, then turned on her heel and marched out onto the field.

“Well, this is going to be a disaster.” Hiccup said to Toothless.

He and his dragon took their place. As soon as Fergus blew the whistle, Astrid and Stoick were off. Hiccup crossed his arms, and waited to see what Merida would do.

Merida turned the shepherd’s crook upside down. Her four Terrors seized onto the shaft. She stepped onto the hook part, then the four dragons lifted the crook into the air with her on it.

She directed a smug look at Hiccup. “Don’t ye have a black sheep to be retrieving?”

Hiccup waved at her. “This? This is just what I’m talking about!” He touched Toothless in the side, a wordless request for the dragon to take off.

“Find!” Merida called to her dragons. “And haste ye back!” Then she was gliding away.

Hiccup focused half his attention on the search, and half of it on stewing. “Pigheaded Princess!” He muttered. “Too secretive by half!”

He almost missed the black dot below, placed on top the Crone’s Tooth. But out of the corner of his eye, he spotted a a flash of yellow and blue. Astrid! And she was darting straight for it!

“Let’s go, Bud!”

Toothless dropped into a dive, straight into the Fire Falls. In his focus to get to the sheep, Hiccup barely registered the water thundering down around him, soaking through his fancy new clothes.

He darted under Stormfly’s claws, seizing the sheep as Toothless spiraled down the Crone’s Tooth, Astrid and Stormfly literally on his tail.

The dragon pulled up in the spray a second sooner than Stormfly could manage. Hiccup and Toothless skimmed the surface of the river while Astrid and Stormfly went for a dunk. By the time they managed to fish themselves out, he and Toothless would be lost beneath the canopy of trees.

Weaving through the trees took time. When he arrived at the castle Astrid and Stormfly were ahead of him with three white fluffy sheep. Stoick had retrieved another eight.

“That’s 15-10, team HofferStoick. Fergus announced.

That was that. Hiccup leaned against Toothless’s flat, scaly forehead. “Well, we tried, Buddy. That was nice flying at the falls. By the way—“

The sound of bleating cut him off. He turned to see a herd of sheep thunder into the arena, being kept together by the four Terrors. Merida followed behind on foot, Shepherd’s crook resting on one shoulder, looking like some sort of pastoral painting. She called instructions to the dragons as she walked.

Hiccup’s jaw dropped. He turned to see Stoick and Astrid with similar shocked expressions on their faces.

“Steady, Malinky! Away, Numpity! Dingbat! Stand Dingbat!” With her vocal commands alone, she got the four Terrors to herd the sheep into her goal. When all the sheep were put away, the four dragons landed in front of her, tails wriggling expectantly.

“That’ll do girls — and Dingbat.” They all moved in to nuzzle her and receive scritches under the chin.

“New score!” Fergus announced. “With the six sheep Merida brought in our score is 16-15, team Mericcup.”

The Highlanders exploded into raucous cheers, clapping their hands and stomping their feet in excitement that their highland princess could show those Vikings what for at their own sport.

“Oh dear,” Hiccup heard the Queen say. “So much for squelching the dragon sheep herding initiative.”

Merida’s expression was even more smug than before. Hiccup sighed, feeling wet and tired and dejected. “Come on, Bud. Let’s get dried off.”

—

He’d just put on the green tunic from that morning when Merida knocked. She put her head into the room, a contrite expression on her face and Bampot on one shoulder. “Would it be alright to come in?”

“You’re asking?” Hiccup crossed his arms.

She winced. “Astrid told me about how you and Toothless swam doon the Fire Falls. I think you deserve this more’n me.” She held out a blue ribbon.

“Thanks.” He said without any enthusiasm.

She tossed the prize on the bed. Then ran her hand along a sword-nicked bedpost. “I’m sorry for nae telling ye me plan. I’ve been aware that ye dinnae think much o’ me wee ones. I thought it might be fun ta show ye what for.”

“Was it?” Hiccup asked.

“Nae. Not when it gets ye in a right state.”

She worried at one long scar in the wood. “As for never explainin’ aught: All me life I’ve been told that I cannae do anything I want. I’m the princess. I have to be the example. I guess that I learned to just keep me own counsel and then ask for forgiveness later.”

“I know how that feels.” Hiccup sat on the bed, staring at her and thinking of all the times he’d been told to stop being himself. And how he’d eventually just gotten so sick of it that he’d built the bola launcher, thinking that if he could just prove everyone wrong, it would solve all his problems.

Now that he thought about it, nothing seemed to go his way when he tried to be a proper Viking. It wasn’t until he started to do his own thing that he felt like less of a Hiccup.

Then he came back to Berk, to find that some people still remembered “Hiccup the Useless.”

And here he was deciding that Merida and her dragons couldn’t possibly compete in a dragon race. Judging her the way others had judged him.

He wanted to kick himself.

“You’re right, though,” she sighed. “If we’re going ta’ work together I need to learn to share me thoughts. I’ll do me best to remember that in the future.”

Hiccup nodded, resolving to do better as well. “For what it’s worth, I’m impressed with how well you trained your Terrors. I didn’t even think you could race Terrors.”

Merida smirked at him. “At’ll learn ye not to underestimate me, or me wee ones.”

“I won’t. Not again.” This felt like they were back on even footing with one another. More than that, he felt ready to set out on this adventure.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know that the Vikings have sheep. So why would they need to trade for wool with the Scots? I headcanon that the sheep raised by the Vikings are mutton sheep, which are bred to produce better meat, but not great wool.
> 
> Hiccup’s joke about Bobsledding comes from the commercials that Dreamworks played during the 2010 Vancouver Olympics games. 
> 
> The play that Merida, Hiccup and her brothers put on was inspired by the deleted scene in which Elinor and the Triplets stage a dramatic retelling of how Fergus won Elinor’s Hand for the other clan leaders, as well as the presenting the relics scene. The clan leaders were so much fun to write.
> 
> Hiccup may not be a fan of Scottish music, but I am. Especially anything by Clanadonia, who you can hear here:  
> https://youtu.be/hnSNfxjrwck


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Our hapless rescue party reaches Constantinople, where Hiccup immediately falls under suspicion for being of the Viking persuasion while looking too hard at important engeneering marvels (like walls designed to keep those of the Viking persuasion out).

Merida launched another arrow into the water. “All right, Bampot, it’s your turn.”

The Highland Terrier Dragon lifted from the rail, flew to the arrow floating in the sea, picked it up and brought it back to Merida. 

The princess sighed. Even though she was used to sea travel, she’d never been confined to a ship for so long. 

She’d gone flying with Hiccup and Toothless whenever the mood struck one of them. She’d practiced shooting her arrows until her arm hurt and she could make a shaft pass through her cold iron ring. 

She’d taught her tiny dragons every trick she could think of to keep them out of trouble, from humming the tune to Loch Lomand to fetching arrows that she fired into the ocean. 

She’d climbed the riggings and swung from them like one of her brothers dropping from the chandelier to raid Maudie’s cakes. 

Between the two of them, she and Hiccup had picked up not only Greek and Latin, but a smattering of Languadoc, French and Spanish. He’d even let her teach him Gaelic. 

She’d also taken to study: reading Hiccup’s dragon manual cover to cover and changing the bits about the Terrible Terrors that weren’t right. 

Hiccup had been encouraging on that score, bring armloads of books back from book stalls in every port where they stopped to resupply from Corona to Rome. 

For him: books on everything from cogs and springs to the parts of a butterfly’s wing. For her: books on folklore. Given the call that fate laid at her feet, it never hurt to learn everything she could. Especially about otherworldly creatures she might encounter in foreign lands. 

But the story books were what really caught her attention. Especially Don Quixote. To the point that Hiccup brought back a new chapter book whenever he found one. 

He’d thought it hilarious when she swore him to secrecy concerning her new hobby. But if Mum ever found out that all she’d had to do when Merida was a girl to encourage her to study was to put her on a boat for months on end, Merida would never hear the end of it. 

She looked mournfully over at Hiccup, where he sat against the railing, absorbed in assembling some project that involved catching lightning. 

Thanks to him, they’d made good time. He’d helped them avoid the worst storms. And that curious little crystal he called a “sunstone” helped them navigate on cloudy days. By the captain’s reckoning, they would reach Constantinople in a fortnight. 

He’d also installed a fair number of whirling, pinging and whizzing devices around the ship. What they did was beyond her ken. 

But her personal favorite of his projects: he’d developed several trick arrows for her to use. Exploding arrows, grapnel arrows, even one with a cestus on the end, for times when you really just want to punch someone from far away. 

“Alright,” Hiccup said at last, standing up. “I think I’m ready to try this out.”

“This is the lightning catcher, aye?” Merida looked at the iron rod in his hands dubiously.

“The idea isn’t to catch lightning, it’s to divert it.” Hiccup said. “Ships at sea get hit with lightning more often than you realize. If this works, it would keep us safer.”

“I’ll climb up and fix it to the mast, then?” Merida smiled in relief of having something to do at last. “How do ye plan to test it?”

“Toothless,” Hiccup said. The dragon lay sleeping in the sunlight on the aft deck. He opened one eye, sniffed at them, and shut it again. 

“Lazy reptile,” Hiccup said affectionately. 

Merida took the rod and fasteners and shimmied up the mast. When she reached the top, she put the device in place. 

“A little more to the left,” Hiccup’s voice over her shoulder startled her into letting go. With a shriek, she fell backwards, right into his arms. 

Merida opened her eyes to find herself and Hiccup on Toothless’s back, hovering just beside the mast. 

“Ye could ha’ killed me, ye porridge-brained numpity!” She hit his shoulder. “I been climbin’ the Crone’s Tooth for five years with nary a slip. An ye’ make me nearly fall off the mast for fun!” 

“Ow! So violent!” Hiccup made a great show of rubbing his shoulder. His expression turned serious. “Merida, I wouldn’t have let you fall.”

Merida felt her heart flutter. She gave him a lopsided smile. “Ah ken that.” She said quietly. “So, more tae th’ left?” She leaned forward to fix the rod. “At’s got it. Now what?”

“Toothless, light it up!” 

Toothless crackled with electricity. Merida wasn’t quite sure what happened next. It occurred in the space between blinks. All she had was the afterimage burned into her retinas to puzzle out what happened. 

It seemed like plasma arched from his throat toward the tallest target around: the mast. Then it changed direction midair, drawn instead to the lightning catcher. 

“It works!” Hiccup cheered, hugging her tightly. 

“That it does,” Merida smiled. 

“So, want a ride on Toothless to celebrate?”

“I thought you’d never ask.”

—

“Crivins! That was all for naught!” Merida said dramatically as she bustled through the archway into the central garden of the villa they’d bought. She flopped down on a bench and reclined dramatically against Toothless.

Hiccup looked up from his sketch. “I take it you didn’t meet the Emperor today?” He smirked. 

“I dinnae think ah met one o’ his secretary’s secretary’s secretary,” Merida said. “If they pass mum’s letter up the chain of command, the emperor might know of our visit about five years from now.”

“Did you get a feel for where the menagerie is?” Hiccup asked.

“It isnae in that rabbit’s warren o’ rooms, that’s certain.” She looked over at him. “What are ye’ drawin’?”

“The Cistern Of Aetius,” Hiccup held out the drawing for Merida’s inspection. “It’s a giant pool that holds fresh water for the entire city.”

Merida gave him a disbelieving look. “Ye spent your first day in the Queen o’ Cities, an’ you don’t see the chariot races, or explore the bazaar. No! Ye go look at a man-made lake.” 

“It’s an engineering marvel.” Hiccup looked hurt. 

“Sorry,” Merida grimaced. “Ah’m just frustrated. I dinnae mean to take it out on ye.”

“At least you don’t have to do it again,” Hiccup patted her shoulder. “We should wait until after dark, and fly over the palace with Toothless. He might be able to call out, and if there is a dragon, it could call back.”

“‘At might narrow things down a bit,” Merida said. She stood, crossing the garden to the door that would lead her upstairs to their room. 

“What are you doing?”

“Havin’ a wee kip. If we’re going to be up all night, I want tae be fresh for it.” 

As if in agreement, Toothless put his head on the bench and closed his eyes. 

—

When he was yanked into a dark alley and a black sack slammed down over his head, Hiccup cursed. The gentleman who had sold them the house had warned him that being mugged on the street was common. 

But he wasn’t anywhere near the brothel district.

He struggled against his captors, kicking and flailing. He was rewarded with a cuff on the back of the head, and the sharp point of a knife pressed at his belly. 

“Stop struggling,” one of them told him in Norse. “We were told to take you alive. They never said you had to be in one piece.”

Hiccup froze, allowing himself to be thrown over someone’s shoulder and carried away. 

This was more than just a mugging. Was he being kidnapped by a Northman, or just someone who spoke Norse?

The only way to get answers, was to go quietly. 

He only hoped it didn’t come back to bite him in the end. 

— 

He was tied to a chair, then the bag was pulled from his head. 

As he sat blinking in the sudden light, he cataloged his other senses to try to figure out where he was. The air smelled of salt, so he must be along the city walls. He could hear the dry scrape of a knife against a whetstone. 

Once his eyes adjusted to the light, he saw that he was sitting at a table. A set of knives, pliers and other implements of pain had been lined up on them. 

A swarthy man with prominent facial tattoos sat on the other end of the table. It was he who sharpened the knife. 

There were two other men in the room. One guarding the door and one leaning against the wooden lattice that covered the window. 

Through the window he could see the Bosphorus. Based on the angle, he thought that he might be in the Tower of Eugenius.

The overtly-threatening-knife-sharpener smiled in a friendly sort of way at Hiccup. 

“Hello friend! As I’m sure you can tell, you’re in a heap of trouble,” he said in perfect Norse. He gestured with the point of his blade.

“I can see that, strange threatening person whom I’ve never met.” Hiccup said. “I’m not really sure what kind of trouble though. You’ll excuse me. This is my first kidnapping.”

“Oh, where are my manners?” Tattoo guy said. “I’m Eret, Son Of Eret, captain of the Emperor’s personal guard.” 

Hiccup swallowed. “Really? Does the Emperor always have his personal guard snatch people off the streets?”

“Only people who take too keen an interest in the wrong things,” Eret said. “For example, foreigners of the Viking sort who spend a little too much time looking at the aqueducts, the cisterns and the tower chain.”

“Viking?” Hiccup’s voice rose an octave. “What makes you think I’m a Viking?”

The point of Eret’s knife hovered over the decorative knotwork on Hiccup’s collar. “That’s not Venetian, or Dalmatian.” 

“Technically you’re of the Viking sort, too.” Hiccup said.

“Bit of a difference, friend. You see, me and my boys are paid to be here. I wonder, though. Is someone paying you?” He pointed with the tip of his knife. “The Rus, perhaps? Looking for a way past the walls?” 

“Nothing like that!” Hiccup shook his head. “I’m just a tinkerer! I like to know how things work!”

“And how do we know you’re telling the truth?” The guy by the door asked. 

“Gunnar, I’ll be doing the thinking today.” Eret sounded annoyed. He turned back to Hiccup with a sheepish look on his face. “How do we know you’re telling the truth?”

Hiccup pointed to his journal in his pocket with his chin. “This is full of my designs! See for yourself!”

Eret pulled the book out and opened it - not to one of the many diagrams he’d filled the pages with. But to one of his drawings of Merida. 

He glanced down at it, then up at Hiccup. “Pretty girl.” 

Hiccup winced at his own luck. “I wouldn’t call her that to her face.”

At that moment, the lattice and the guard at the window were pulled outward with a resounding crash. 

Seconds later, Merida dropped through the window, followed by her Terrors. The four tiny dragons swarmed Gunnar, who began screaming and flailing in a futile attempt to beat them off. Merida fired two arrows at once at Eret. 

He ducked with a cry of alarm, covering his head. The arrows embedded In the wall on either side of him. 

“If ye’ hae hurt one hair on his head, I’ll cut those marks off’n yur pretty face an pin em to me sporran!” Merida barked at him. 

Eret peeked through his fingers at Merida. “What did she say?”

“Er . . . She told you don’t move, or else.” Hiccup said. “Of course, she was more violent about it.”

The tattooed guardsman held his hands up. Suddenly he snatched a knife from behind his neck, and hurled it at Merida.

Hiccup cried out in warning. But the knife severed Merida’s bowstring, missing her altogether. 

Merida dropped to the ground, springing back up with Hiccup’s gifted knife in her hand. 

But Eret moved faster, leaping over the table to press his knife against Hiccup’s throat. 

“Drop it!” He ordered Merida. With a sour expression, she dropped the knife. 

“Call off your dragons!” He commanded her. 

Merida huffed. “Numpity, Bampot, Malinky, Dingbat, that’ll do.”

The four dragons flew to her side, hissing at Eret. 

“All the dragons.” 

The knife at Hiccups throat dug into his skin, causing him to wince.

“Toothless, please come in.” Merida called out. 

Toothless slithered into the room like quicksilver, dragging the unconscious body of the third guard. The dragon dumped it on the ground. His green eyes were narrowed to unfriendly slits. He loomed above them, exuding menace. 

“A Night Fury,” Eret sounded impressed. “I’m my trapping days, I would have made a lot of gold off of the likes of you.”

Toothless hissed at him.

If the guardsman felt any of that threat, he hid it well. Instead he opened Hiccup’s book again with his free hand and compared Merida to her likeness. 

“You sound Scottish,” Eret observed. “I didn’t know there were Amazons in Scotland.”

Merida bared her teeth at Eret. Hiccup prayed to Eir that both dragon and princess would keep their tempers in check and not do anything rash. 

Eret returned to leafing through the sketches. He stopped when he came to hiccup’s design for Toothless’s tail fin. He looked from it to the actual fin. 

“You built that?”

“Yes.” Hiccup croaked. 

“Who are you?”

There wasn’t anything to be gained by keeping silent. He was already convinced that they were spies. “I’m Hiccup Horrendous Haddock The Third. My father is Stoick the Vast, Chieftan of the Hairy Hooligan tribe of Berk. The dragon is Toothless, my best friend. And this is my wife, Merida O’ DunBroch, firstborn Of Fergus O’DunBroch, High King Of Scotland.”

Eret’s head whipped around to Merida. “How is it that a princess of Scotland comes to be scaling a wall and taking out two of my men like an assassin?”

“Ahm nae yur ordinary princess,” Merida said from between her clenched teeth.

“I’m going to put my knife down,” Eret said. “The two of you and your dragons can try to fight, or escape. But if you are who you say you are, you came here with ships and men. They’ll never make it out of the harbor past the chain.”

“You’re convinced I’m not a spy?” Hiccup said. 

“I’m willing to let you prove yourself.” Eret replied.

“I presented letters from me Da’ at the palace yesterday,”’Merida said. “If ye’ can find the man who took them on behalf o’ the Emperor, he could vouch for us.” Merida said.

“Your letters are probably on the desk of a fifth-rate eunuch. There are doubtless already three other letters and a cup sitting on top of them. If we looked, we might find them in another year.” 

“Then how are we supposed to prove ourselves?” Hiccup asked. 

“The emperor’s throne room is filled with wonders.” Eret said. “There are mechanical trees with singing birds, and lions that roar when you approach. One of the lions stopped roaring recently. If you are who you say you are, you can fix it.”

Hiccup thought about the mechanics it would take to build a roaring lion. There must be a bellows. Something that pumps air across a noisemaker that would be fitted in the lion’s mouth. 

“I can tell by that look in his eyes that he’s already working on the problem.” Merida sounded both exasperated with and fond of him. “I ken ye’d best be takin’ us to this mechanical beastie, Laddie.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The cestus on an arrow is a call back to the comic book character Green Arrow. During the golden age of comics he used trick arrows including a boxing glove arrow. 
> 
> I couldn’t resist putting Don Quixote into the story (the story is already an anachronistic hash. What’s one more anachronism?) Cervantes was a 17th century Terry Pratchett with the fame of JK Rowling. 
> 
> In the book, the age of chivalry is past. Don Quixote is a country gentleman who reads so much that his brain dries up and he thinks he’s a knight of old. Given how much Merida hates lessons, the idea that she’d secretly love romance novels (what we’d call fantasy genre novels today) was too much to resist. 
> 
> Merida has encountered the infamous Byzantine bureaucracy. Byzantine Rome was said to have such an intricate, confusing bureaucratic system that all future intricate, confusing bureaucracies have been described as “Byzantine in nature.”
> 
> A lot of the sights that Hiccup visited can still be seen if you go to Istanbul. The Cistern Of Ateus is now a soccer field. A few sections of the wall are still standing. 
> 
> And of course Merida and Toothless scale a tower to reach Hiccup. At the start of Brave, Merida is hardcore free climbing. By this point, she can probably parkour through Constantinople better than the player character in Assassin’s Creed.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hiccup tries to think his way out of his predicament. His results are somewhat mixed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don’t watch the TV show Vikings. I do, however, listen to the British History Podcast, which talked a lot about Ragnar Lothbrock. So when I named one of Eret’s men Ragnar, I assumed I was making a stealthy historical reference. 
> 
> Halvdan was named after the graffiti artist who carved his name into the walls in the Hagia Sophia. 
> 
> And Gunnar . . . Is named after one of the Nelson Twins from the 90’s glam rock band. Because I’m as old as the pyramids, apparently.

Eret led them down the tower and city walls, they exited into the streets at the Gate of Eugenios. An ox-drawn cart, painted in red and green and covered with a canopy, waited there for them. A guard in a coat of maille stood watch over the cart.

“Halvdan: Gunnar and Ragnar were knocked out by the prisoner,” Eret told the guardsman. “Summon a new cart and have them taken to the hospital.”

Halvdan saluted Eret, then ran up the street.

“The dragons will ride in the cart with the curtains closed,” Eret told them.

Hiccup turned to his dragon friend. “You heard him, Toothless.”

Once all the dragons were hidden away, Eret led them through narrow, steep, muddy streets. As they neared the Hippodrome, the dirt track gave way to cobblestones.

They drove the oxen under a covered walk, then stopped before a marbled arch. Eret signaled for Hiccup to go inside.

The guardsman led the humans and dragons through a confusing tangle of corridors. He paused before an ornate, guilded door. “The throne room is empty right now. So we can take care of business without being disturbed.”

Eret threw the door open. “Behold, the jewel of Constantinople, the throne of his grace, the Emperor.”

They passed into the most beautiful room Hiccup had ever seen. Merida gasped in wonder. He found himself nodding in agreement to her sentiment.

Shafts of light streamed down from windows set high around a graceful dome. The dome rested on eight arches. A recessed niche was set back under each arch. Hiccup could see an assortment of treasures displayed in each niche.

The walls and dome were covered in mosaic tiled pictures made of shining gold and precious stones. The images were of the sort he’d seen in other churches in the city: beings Merida had described as angels and saints of the Christian faith.

The throne sat at the opposite end of the eight sided room from the corridor they’d come from. A low railing sectioned it off from the rest of the room.

“Keep your pets away from the dome,” Eret said tersely. “I don’t want to explain to the emperor how little bits of the angels fell off the ceiling.”

“You heard him, Bud. Stay close.”

Merida also gave the sit/stay command for her Terrors. They flew to Toothless’s saddle and perched.

“Those are the most well trained little beasts I’ve ever seen,” Eret said, looking at the Terrors in fascination.

“You haven’t heard them sing Loch Lomand,” Hiccup said. Toothless snorted derisively.

Eret led them past the railing to the throne: the large gold and lapiz chair sat on a raised platform. The bird-ornamented trees spread their golden branches behind the seat, while two mechanical lions stood on either side of the steps leading up to the platform.

Anyone wishing to approach the throne to speak with the emperor would have to bow so that their head was between the two lion heads. When they roared, it would be into the ears of the person bowing.

Hiccup forgot about Eret, the throne room and their precarious position. He tapped a branch. As he suspected, it made a hollow sound. Air could be blown through them to make the birds whistle.

He knelt before a lion, looking up into it’s mouth. The box that might make the roar if air was pushed through it - was there.

He felt around the lion’s mane.

“What are ye lookin’ for?” Merida asked.

“An access point.” Hiccup said.

“How do you know there’s one there?” Eret asked.

“I don’t.” hiccup said. “But if I’d designed this thing, it’s where I’d put one.” He encountered a tiny catch, too delicate for his fingers.

“Merida, can you reach this?”

Merida felt along the point he indicated with her littlest finger. There was a click, and then part of the mane swung open.

Hiccup looked inside the hatch. Copper piping extended from the base of the automation up to the sound box. It seemed all normal. He’d have to detach the box.

“I need my tools,” he said.

As if in cue, a soldier appeared with the chest Hiccup had packed his tools in.

Merida squawked in outrage. “What did ye’ do, you reprobate? Go through our things?”

“Little help, here?” Hiccup asked Merida. He’d learned by now that the best way to keep her from losing her temper was to completely undermine her thought process.

Merida glared at Eret one last time. Then she knelt next to Hiccup. He showed her how to hold the sound box. Then he grabbed his tiny metal saw and sawed through the lead pipe.

Once the box was free, he cut through the lead soldier that held the device together.

Among the inner workings was a lead blade that the air would pass over, creating the roaring sound. Some time in the recent past, the blade had become bent.

He straightened the blade with his pliers, replaced the side of the box, and put new lead solder into place.

“Bud, could you give me a little heat right around the edge of the box?”

Toothless spit a pinpoint fireball along the side of the box, melting the solder but leaving the rest untouched.

Hiccup fixed the box back into place. Then more lead solder and more dragonfire. After which he closed the lion.

“That should do it.” He brushed dust from his hands.

Eret nodded to the soldier, who left the room. “We have to wait on the bellows,” he explained.

In a few moments, there was a hissing sound. Then the birds began to sing and each of the lions roared. The sound lasted for only a minute before dying away.

Hiccup stood, brushing off his knees. “That should prove we are who we say we are. Can we go now?”

Eret plucked at his chin as he stared thoughtfully at Hiccup, Toothless, Merida and the Terrors. Finally, he sighed regretfully.

“I wish you could.”

“What?” Hiccup leaned against the lion’s head shakily.

“I knew it!” Merida blistered the air blue with Gaelic curses. Toothless hissed, setting the Terrors hissing as well.

“Part of why I’m here, instead of hunting Dragons in the north, is my considerable skill with tracking,” Eret said. “You see, the Emperor charged me with finding people like yourself. Cunning artificers, he calls you.

“I started out as a hunter, and worked my way up to the captain of the guardsmen. But my first orders haven’t changed.

“Skill like yours is too valuable to waste in a backwater like The Barbaric Archipelago. Not when it can add to the glory of the Roman Empire. So I’m afraid I’m going to have to offer you the Emperor’s hospitality,” Eret said with a sad little smile.

“It would be for the best if you accepted graciously, but you will accept, nonetheless,” he told them. “Sooner or later, everyone does.”

Merida picked up one of Hiccup’s hammers. “Ye’ll nae be takin’ him!”

“Princess, even as we speak, you are surrounded by soldiers.” Eret looked nervous for the first time. “Be reasonable.”

Merida’s eyes narrowed. “If me Mum was here, she’d tell ye that reason was never me strong suit.”

Toothless spread his wings, pacing. Hiccup saw shifting in the shadows around the room.

This was escalating fast! If they weren’t careful, they were going to either burn down Constantinople, or end up stabbed, tortured and thrown in jail. Possibly all of the above.

“I have conditions!” Hiccup said desperately.

Merida looked at him in askance. “Hiccup, no!”

“Name them!” Eret said in a relieved tone of voice.

“You let Merida and the dragons go. The crew is free to sail home. And,” he opened his journal to retrieve the page of paper that started this all. “I want this dragon.”

Eret looked over the paper, comprehension dawning on his face. “I can do the first two. I’ll need to discuss the third with the Emperor.”

“Yur daft If ye think I’ll leave ye!” Merida screeched. Toothless hissed in agreement.

“That’s my price,” Hiccup said, ignoring them.

Eret looked from Hiccup to Merida and Toothless, biting his lip. “Done!” He finally shouted.

He darted forward and grabbed Merida’s wrist just as she drew back to fling the hammer at him with a Scottish battle cry.

“Princess.” His tone was soft as he wrestled the hammer out of her hands. “You’ll need to pack your household up. Your crew must leave within the week. I suggest you prepare whatever correspondence you need to send home with them.”

Merida has been trying to kick at Eret’s legs. His words caused her to stumble and fall onto her backside. “Yeahbuwha?”

A sense of betrayal sent Hiccup forward a step. “I said she goes free!”

Eret chuckled. “You really should have specified. Your wife and your dragons are free — to move about the city.” He eyed Toothless. The dragon bared it’s teeth at him. “Within reason, of course. But I didn’t agree to let them go home.”

Hiccup and Merida stared at each other, mouths hanging open.

“You don’t need them,” Hiccup argued weakly.

“But _you_ do,” Eret said. “Besides, they are adamant that they won’t leave without you. This just eliminates the part where they sail away, fly back to rescue you and I capture them.”

“We’ve got an awfully big heid, don’t we?” Merida said.

Eret made a shooing motion with one hand. “Now let’s clean this up, and I’ll take you to see this dragon you want so badly.”

Hiccup put his tools away, feeling numb. Merida helped him in frosty silence.

“Mer—“

“Dinnae.” She cut him off.

He sighed.

Eret led them through another confusing noodle bowl of corridors, emerging into an open-air, walled garden.

Night had fallen while Hiccup had worked. Once Eret lit a torch they could see cages spaced evenly along a winding gravel path.

As they neared the first cage, Merida gasped. Hiccup squinted into the gloom just beyond the circle of light put out by Eret’s torch. A geriatric big cat of some kind with alternating orange and black stripes blinked back at them with rheumy eyes.

“Oh the poor wee lamb!” Merida cooed.

Eret shot her a concerned look.

“He hasanae’ enough room to turn around!”

They continued down the path, passing a bear, a black and white striped mule and three cackling dog-like creatures, each more miserable-looking than the one before. Hiccup felt a knot form in the pit of his stomach. What condition would they find the Night Fury in?

The largest cage of all was the size of Hiccup and Merida’s bedroom back in the castle in Scotland. Eret pointed into it. “I brought the creature here, myself.”

The cage held a pile of rubble from an old wall and a patch of worn grass, but no Night Fury.

Merida gasped again. This time in wonder. “Look at the rocks.” She whispered.

Hiccup looked harder. This time, he could see an outline of a dragon. The creature was upside down, pressed against the stones in such a way that it’s scaly smoke colored hide blended.

“It’s not black,” Hiccup whispered.

“Female birds and lizards are nae always as showy as the males,” Merida whispered. “If there’s a predator, the male will draw it off an’ the female will stay with the nest.” She traced the shape of the dragon with her hands in the air. “This one is the right shape. And her coloring would blend in with rocks on a cliff or a seashore, smoke, tree trunks, the deep ocean, storm clouds —“

“I get it,” Hiccup cut her off.

Behind them, Toothless had gone perfectly still. He let out a short, tentative cry.

The girl dragon rotated it’s head upside down like an owl’s, and blinked green eyes. It let out an identical cry. It launched itself from the pile of stones and glided to the ground next to the bars.

It stared at Toothless in surprise. Then it narrowed it’s eyes in hostility at Eret and snapped at the cage bars.

“Let her out!” Merida ordered Eret.

“I can’t do that without the Emperor’s say so, Princess.” Eret shook his head. “Besides, I’m not going to be the one responsible for burning down Constantinople the way the vandals did Rome.”

“This cage is too small,” Merida said accusingly. “The wee lass hasnae any muscle to fly with, much less walk. There couldn’t be any harm in letting her out to roam the garden, at least?”

“She’s not fond of humans,” Eret said.

“Gee, I wonder why,” Hiccup snapped. “It’s not like every human she’s ever met has treated her like she belongs in the circus or something.” He pointed in the direction of the Hippodrome for emphasis.

“Now what?” Merida asked quietly, dropping to her knees to study the female Night Fury. The dragoness sniffed derisively at Eret, turned it’s back on them all, and preened it’s tail.

“First I convince the Emperor to part with her,” Eret said. “Which will be easier, since he gains a Master Artificer in the process.” He put a heavy hand on Hiccup’s shoulder.

Hiccup shook it off.

“We keep quarters for the animal keeper here in the gardens. Those will be yours while you stay here.” Eret pointed to a rough hewn door set in a nearby wall.

Which meant that he and his men could guard them and make sure they couldn’t escape.

“The rooms aren’t perhaps as luxurious as the villa you have now, but they are more secure.” He tapped his tattooed chin thoughtfully. “Of course, you’ll be allowed to sell the villa and send the money back with your men. I’m sure it would help convince your family that you’ve accepted the Emperor’s hospitality, and they don’t need to ransom you.”

“Your dragons should stay here during the day, when they could be seen,” Eret continued. “They don’t have dragons south of the Carpathians. Seeing one on the streets might cause a panic. Which we do not need in a city with this many people.”

Hiccup took Merida’s hand, squeezing it. He was relieved when she squeezed it back. She may not have forgiven him for trying to send her home, and he didn’t look forward to the yelling match he was in for tonight. But at least she hadn’t decided to kill him.

They really had no choice but to agree to whatever Eret ordered them to do. Seeing as the female Night Fury didn’t look like she had the strength to fly, and would attack them the moment that they opened the cage doors.

Once they could get her to trust them, and to build up the strength and stamina to fly, maybe they could plot their escape then.

—

They borrowed the wagon to get back to the villa. Toothless and the Terrors rode hidden beneath the curtained canopy. Merida walked beside him in frosty silence.

Hiccup expected the yelling as soon as they got back. Instead, Merida called her men together to inform them of the change of plans. As she spoke in the receiving room, he walked out to the central courtyard and sat on the edge of the fountain. Toothless followed, lending quiet comfort by his presence.

The crew of sailors and servants seemed to subconsciously encircle Merida, as if they could protect their princess. One or two shot him a dark look. No doubt blaming him for this predicament.

“I think I screwed up, Bud.” He told the dragon. Toothless responded by smacking him in the back of the head with his tail.

“Yeah, I know. I’m sorry.”

Toothless licked Hiccup’s face.

“Thanks Bud. Wish everyone was that forgiving.” He stole a look at the knot of sailors, with Merida at their center.

“You better stay down here tonight,” he said as he scratched Toothless behind his right ear flap. “Merida’s probably going to yell at me a lot.”

The dragon looked at him with an unimpressed expression.

“In my defense, I was thinking of you guys first.”

He prodded Hiccup toward their room with his head.

“I’m going.” With a dark sigh, Hiccup headed upstairs. Once in the room, he striped down to his trews, and washed the dust and dragon slobber from his face in the basin.

The door creaked open. He looked over his shoulder to see Merida leaning against the frame, arms crossed. Bitter disappointment etched deep frown lines in her face.

Hiccup wiped away the water with a towel, then turned to her. “Let’s hear it.”

“You were going to send me away,” she said in a tired voice.

“I was,” Hiccup nodded.

“Why? I thought we were partners!”

“Mer, our agreement was for a year and a day,” Hiccup said. “It looks like I may be here for a lot longer than that. I’ve got no right to tie you to me. Not when you fought so hard for your freedom.”

“And Toothless?” Merida asked incredulously, rolling her hand at the balcony overlooking the courtyard.

“You would look out for one another until I could get back,” Hiccup said.

“Ye daft man,” Merida said with quiet exasperation. She crossed the room to him. Grabbing the back of his head, she pulled him down to her, closed her eyes and mashed her lips to his.

Hiccup flailed his arms for a second, eyes wide, brain short circuiting. What was . . . She was . . . He was . . . Instinct took over. He wrapped his arms around her and sank into the kiss.

Merida eventually pulled away, but kept her fingers threaded through his hair. “Bugger the agreement. I’m gunna keep ye, if you’ll let me.”

Hiccup blinked at her. Feeling like the words she used to describe her dragons: Daft, Numpity, Dingbat. All those.

But a lightness bubbled up in his chest. “Yes? I think —“

“Hiccup? You’ve done enough thinking today.” Her gaze was positively sultry.

He laughed. “As Mi’lady commands.”

There was a lot of not speaking after that. There was screaming, but it was of the more pleasant kind.

—

Dear Mum,

This may be the only letter I can send for some time. We found the dragon we were searching for, but she’s in sorry shape. It’ll take time to change that.

Hiccup and I have been invited to stay in Constantinople as personal guests in service to the emperor. We think it best to accept, as it will give us access to the dragon and the time we need to work with her.

You’d be pleased to hear that Hiccup and I have elected to stay in partnership with one another indefinitely. You may inform Stoick the Vast that any treaties the two of you have negotiated will remain in effect.

Make whatever arrangements with whichever holy men you and he think best. And try not to be terribly smug. I admit, you were right.

I’d love to tell you all, but tide and time do not permit it. Be assured that we will return as soon as we are able.

With much love,

Your Merida

**Author's Note:**

> I’m not trying to faithfully reproduce Merida’s accent. Just add a few bits here and there to create flavor. It’s like pepper in your food, a little is good. But too much spoils it.
> 
> Also, before anyone writes to tell me that I misspelled Terror as terrier, that’s an entirely intentional error on Merida’s part.


End file.
